


the catalog of non-definitive acts (or, 31 Flavors of Green)

by Madame la Problématique (callmearcturus), mimsical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adornment, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, Aphrodisiacs, Canon Compliant, Cock Cages, Corruption, Detailed Tags In Each Chapter, Dom/sub, Domestic, Dominance, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, Fuck Or Die, Helplessness, Impact Play, Kink Grabbag, Kink Negotiation, Kinktober, M/M, Main Kinks Include (list to expand with each update):, Master/Pet, Post-Sburb, Safeword Use, Sensory Deprivation, Sex Toys Under Clothing, Submission, Transformation, Xeno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 23:08:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 71,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16147472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmearcturus/pseuds/Madame%20la%20Probl%C3%A9matique, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimsical/pseuds/mimsical
Summary: When you have the rest of eternity ahead of you and the combined might of hope and heart power bullshit at your disposal, you're bound to cause yourselves some trouble. A Kinktober 2018 treat.





	1. 1 October - this is sure to misspell disaster (Adornment)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to a Kinktober event. Mims and Archie have a festival of delights for you to enjoy. There is an overarching conceit to the story but functionally, every chapter is a different focus, and each one has a different 'main kink' that is supported by other kinks. **If you want a full list of the chapter's content, check the end notes of the chapter before reading! It's all there!**
> 
> The plan is for another update every day. It's a ton of work but hopefully worth it. Let us know if you enjoy, and have a happy Kinktober!

Here is what's happening. None of it is real. 

You are sitting in a breezy room. There is ocean air filtering in, making the gauzy drapes around you shift and dance in the gentle wind. It's just cool enough that gooseflesh spreads over your skin. A rich violet drape stretches all the way out to you, brushing your shoulder. It's ticklish, but you don't move to bat it away nor budge from your seat on the thick pillow. You're not supposed to.

The gooseflesh thing is interesting. Your dreams have never managed to be so vivid before. Maybe because you spent the majority of your life not so much dreaming as flipping between consciousnesses. It's a funny conundrum, to be _bad_ at dreaming.

Maybe you're getting better? The time since your departure from the Game has grown, and you've had more practice at the whole human sleep thing. Finally, the details are filling out, and you can learn what all the kids are raving about.

Anyway, that line of thought is pointless and is kind of bucking you from enjoying the experience. Lucidity has always dogged you in your dreams. You've been under the impression that's just part and parcel of being the Prince of Heart.

You do your best not to think too much. It's a considerable effort.

Salt and flowing gossamer colors and an extremely comfortable pile of pillows and cushions on the floor. You move enough to allow your neck to turn. The room is like some rose-colored version of a saucy harem, with the gold ornaments and carpet of floor seating and something citrus-spiced like incense in the air. Smoke wisps up from a wrought metal burner. You inhale deeply, and can taste it.

You're left alone in the room for a while, unable to move, only to let the dream sensations buffet you with their too-real simulacrums, the details giving the world a weird degree of verisimilitude. Something in your head quiets, and you stop paying attention to how real everything feels and just focus on the feeling.

Sighing out a deep breath, you blink slowly. Weird. Not weird. Normal. Accurate. A tactile facsimile.

Before you can put yourself on a tangent on the nature of reality as translated by the mind and the singularity of experience, someone enters the room. There's no sound of a door opening. Just a change in the way the gauzy streamers part around the presence of a person, twisting and bowing out of his way.

He's a handsome boy with dark skin, laugh lines around his mouth, and eyes like chipped emeralds. He's dressed in a finely embroidered tunic, woven shorts, and sandals. He's carrying a wooden box in both hands.

You feel drawn to him immediately, but hold yourself still on your cushion, just tracking him with your eyes and the turn of your head.

"Well, now that is some adherence to instruction! You've not nudged or budged an inch from where I left you, have you?" The handsome young man walks up to you, navigating the uneven pillow-strewn terrain expertly, and begins to describe a circle around you, tread silent and measured. "Very nice."

It's true. You haven't moved. You nod quietly.

"I thought so. Figured you'd enjoy this," he says very softly, so much you turn your head to hear him better. "Ah ah!" His voice leaps back to crystal clear and audible. Present in a way you can't nail down. Present how? As opposed to absent? "Forward, clementine! Keep those eyes trained on that horizon line."

You are facing a great open balcony, and beyond it is the ink-blue of the ocean. You find the point where it meets clean blue sky, and hold.

The boy giggles, bright and nervy, out of your sight. He clears his throat and stifles it down, and that easy command returns. "Let's get you all set and raring to go."

Gaze fixed, you can only watch in your periphery as he works. He kneels down next to you, resting his wooden box on the floor, seeming to be relieved without the weight. flicking his thumbs against the latches, it opens. From this angle, you can't see much of the contents.

"Where to start…." He huffs out a breath. "It's like trying to pick your favorite treat from the pick and mix, they're all great." Glancing sidelong at you, he rubs his chin. "Hm hm hm! Oh, I know."

He takes hold of one of your ankles and pulls, directing and controlling your leg until your foot is flat on the floor in front of you, knee bent. "And the other one."

You do the same with your other leg, both bent and lightly pressed together. He reaches in and nudges them apart. "Perfect." Patting your leg, he returns to his box and lifts out the first item.

Across his palm are little crescent-shaped gold bands and wires. They are small, and you want to look down to figure out what they are but your mind is still centered on the delineation of sea and sky ahead of you. Soon, he ducks out of your sight, beyond your knees, and you feel his hand on your foot.

You twitch, toes curling, and the boy tsks loudly at you. Chastised, you relax again. "Don't do that again," he says, stern but not unkind.

Then he spreads his hand over the bony arch along the top of your foot, stroking, and presses down as he fits the little gold crescents on your toes. They are rings. Okay. You frown slightly, but the boy pays you zero mind as he straightens up, looking over his handiwork with a grin.

"All gleaming and starbright," he murmurs, turning back to the box. "Maybe you didn't like those much, but I've got a kit and a half in here, don't fret."

Next he has wire loops, wide rings with coming together in little interlocked hooks. He grabs a handful of them and pulls the hooks with his thumb until they pop open. A few have golden beads on them, and other have green. The light in here feels too soft to make each facet of the green beads gleam like that, and yet.

He shuffles over to sit in front of you and starts wrapping the rings around your ankles, rehooking each one before putting the next one on. You'd assume he'd spread the rings out between your ankles, but all of them go on your left.

Then he grabs another handful, pops each open, and puts them on your right, until you have almost a dozen laying metal-cool against your skin.

He flicks at a few with his finger and beams at the jingling noise. "Alright there?"

You lick your lips. It's a question. Are you allowed to speak? The answer hands itself to you on a golden platter: Yes, when spoken to.

You nod.

He pats your thigh, then gets into the box again.

Next he pulls out something you can't really figure out until he starts putting it on you. It's a little weird, a round gold plate about the size of his palm with soft padding on one side, and twin green ties looped through holes in the top and bottom. You have no idea what the hell it is.

The boy is confident as he balances one on top of your knee, the cushion against your skin and bone. Grabbing your ankle under the rings, he pulls your leg out, and puts your heel on his leg, propped up just enough for him to work. He takes the rich green ties and fastens them to your leg, keeping the weird kneecap jewelry piece in place.

Then he does the same with the other, so you have two sun discs on your knees. The boy looks you over, bends your legs again, then unbends them… before settling on keeping you stretched out, nodding to himself.

Leaning back, he peers up at your face. It's strange to suddenly have his attention on you like that. You blink and look down at him.

His grin is electric and as shocking as the static zip that hits you out of the blue. Putting two fingers on your chin, he tilts your head up again, refocusing you. "You're better at this than I thought, my fine feather-haired fellow."

You nearly thank him for the compliment, but it heats in your chest, and a sigh comes out of your mouth like steam rising. You nod again.

The boy claps his fucking hands, rubbing them together in blatant delight. "What next!"

You are not being asked, so you just relax, subtly placing your hands behind you and leaning back.

A warm, callused palm runs over your stomach, making your breath stutter once before you get a handle on it. You hear him chuckle, see his head shake ruefully as he pulls at your navel, finger tugging on your bellybutton. That's very hard not to stare at, but you take deep steady breaths and keep looking up, past his dark hair, at the sea and sky.

So you miss it entirely until a prick of real pain catches you, making you jerk. You start to bend inward, towards the pain, protectively.  
  
The boy snaps, "Stop, stop it," and plants a hand on your collarbone, holding you back. "You're fine, sit still. You were doing splendid, there, clementine, are you going to pitch all that into the fire now?"

You gasp in a breath, your heart rabbit fast. It's effort, but with each subsequent breath your spine unwinds more and you sit up again, like before.

He's watching you, lips a thin line, piercing green behind his spectacles.

It takes you a moment to realize he is waiting, and you-- close your eyes for a second, then look up again, at the horizon.

"Good," he says, low enough to nearly be a growl, and gets back to it, clipping something into place down there. Now, the pain is gone. Your skin is humming with a charge, making it much harder to sit still, but you're fine.

A fine gold chain as thin as spidersilk threads through the adornment in your navel and around your waist, his arms brushing your sides as he wraps it around you and back through the piercing. It's a hoop of some kind, you assume. He does it again, lower on your hips so the chain slings around your ass, then once more higher up, above your hipbone and back to clasp against the hoop.

He traces the fanned chain with his fingertips, and pulls at a few, testing. You keep still, and he nods, pleased.

Then the chains get a little heavier as he hooks little coin-sized circles along the links. His placement seems erratic and random, a few here, some there, a heavy one low to tap idly against your wiry hair. Your arms tense, and you breathe out hard.

He gives you a pat, then moves on.

There is much less surprise in you when he does your nipples next. In fact, it's fun to keep your eyes fixed ahead, your breathing steady as he finds the holes there and threads in the piercings. He keeps glancing up at you as he puts one in, then the other, and retrieves another thin gold chain to connect them.

When you remain a statue of detachment, he frowns and tugs the chain, making you hiss and slam your eyes shut.

"There. I am doing very fine work over here, you should admire it."

For a second, you do, taking a glance down your body.

Somehow, being naked didn't really bother you. But this, being half-dressed in gold and emerald jewelry, is… affecting. Your skin is a blank boring canvas spotted with streaks and dots of brilliant metal. The chains around your waist almost glow as they reflect light, and your nipples burn green with bright polished gemstones. It's stark, and you look up, away, back at your focus point as your cheeks burn.

The boy smiles, dark as treacle.

Next is your hands. He puts a slough of webbed chains down over your hand and wrists to sit awkwardly. Rings on each finger, each with a little hook facing up. Grinning to himself in delight, he takes the netting of smooth yielding metal and hooks it to each ring, until your arm is wrapped in a glove of gold. "Plum wonderful," he murmurs, and clicks a band above your elbow, hooking the glove into that too.

Tangling your fingers together, he looks over your arm, then firmly places your hand on the cushion at your side.

He does the same with your other hand, and it's methodical, smooth work. You hold still, eyes lidding as your body becomes increasingly heavy with everything he's adding to it. How did all this fit in that little box? How much more is in there? Is he going to leave you so dripping with gold and chains you'll be too weighed down to move?

You lick your lips.

The boy rises up on his knees and grabs your lower lip between thumb and finger.

It knocks a breath out of your chest. _Oh, fuck._

Without a word of caution or soothing, he pierces you there too. You inhale sharply, fingers tight in the cushion to hold still. He lets out a wordless chiding noise, and clicks something into place, letting you go.

You trace it with your tongue the moment he's done; it's a scrolled band encircling the swell of your lip. You can feel the lettering embossed into it, but can't decipher it.

While you're still trying to wrap your head around that, he moves. A hand on your chest shoves you back until you instinctively brace yourself on your hands, behind you. He nods once, then kneels over you, across your lap.

There is something gold in his hand. You don't see it for more than a second as he cards his hands into your hair, touch tender and sweet for just a moment before it tightens into a fist.

You squeeze your eyes shut and drag your heels against the floor, unable to keep your voice free of a soft moan.

"You're a stunning thing," he says in your ear, voice tight, his own cool composure evaporating into the smoke. "It's all a whirling dervish in my mind. I could keep you right here, all to myself." He strokes down your shoulder to your elbow, pressing on the band there, as if you'd forgotten for a second it was there. "Or I could take you out. A nice walk on the beach. You'd look like a gleaming idol, making all the sunbathers into sinners just gawking at you." He runs his mouth over your ear first, giving you a bite like a prologue.

You hear the sound of metal on metal, like something unhinging. Then, his grip on your hair goes even tighter, and something prickes your ear in two places.

It closes over the upper curve, gold warmed by his hand setting into a cuff around your ear. You shake your head, and feel it on you, and groan again.

He kisses your forehead, lips pressed against your skin and remaining for a long beat. Seconds tick by.

Then he turns your head the other way with his grip. He likes symmetry, you decide.

Your body is throbbing all over as he finishes. Your focus is shattered, and your eyes roll like dropped coins, this way and that as you shift and squirm. There is no position that lets you calm down and _stop_ being too aware of everything he's laid on your body, _in_ your body.

You barely pay attention as he adds a few more things to you, dripping gold necklaces and chains with gems around your neck, fastening more around your bicep. Already, it's too much. Anything more is pointless, mindless.

"No," he says softly. "I think I'll keep you. I like that better, don't you?"

You gasp and nod, nod, keep nodding as your body makes clicking metallic ringing noises.

The sound you make as he shoves you down, flat on your back, is like a coin jar overturned. You blink yourself to awareness, panting, looking up.

He stands over you, his hands on his hips, lips lifted in a smug little quirk.

You swallow thickly, and feel a wide, just-tight-enough band around your neck move with your adam's apple. Fuck. You missed that one.

"You were a looker before," the devilish boy tells you. "Now, you're… dunno, actually. Treasure, mayhaps. Right out of the Cave of Wonders." His grin grows. "Wonders, and Earthly Delights."

You say nothing, laying there panting. You're hard as the metal that's embraced your body.

He knows, of course. With a glance, he takes in the state of you, and whistles softly. "Now then. I think you're all ready."

The handsome boy clicks his fingers, and you brace yourself, getting your arms under you, rolling onto your side. The chain gloves press into you, and your anklets jingle, and your hips jangle, a cacophony of opulence following you as you drag yourself to your feet, your legs shaking.

Clapping his hands again, he beams, his eyes dragging up and down you with avarice, saturated with a cocktail of lust and pride. "You're a gorgeous treat. Any passing dragon would snatch you up. Best keep you safe and sound in here. Now." He waves you closer.

You step in, almost staggering. You're so goddamn _heavy_.

He touches you the moment you're in his reach. His hands drag up your hips, pulling up the chains, letting them drop loose to ring musically as the fall back into place. With the chain between your nipples, he pulls you in to sway closer to him, then pets his hand up your clavicle, the necklaces running over his hand, his palm hot against you.

Somehow, he pulls one loose. Catching it between his fingers, you feel it as a single chain amid all the others slides over your shoulder, across your back, and out to follow his hand.

It's thicker than the others, and terminates at your collar, set into the wide band.

The boy kisses your forehead again, long and lingering.

Then: "On your knees, treasure."

The purpose of the strange sun discs on your knees is suddenly, crisply, abundantly clear. You drop down, and find yourself comfortable, the pressure spread over the circles, your knees resting in the soft padding. Oh. You could… probably spend a good while down here. That's kind of clever.

It also ignites some fire in your belly, making you sag forward, gasping at the force of the revelation. This is what you were waiting here for. This is what you're readied for. This is what you _are for._

His hands on your jaw are almost gentle, as if helping you in a time of need, lifting your head into position. "Go on," he bids you kindly.

You lift your hands, heavy but your fingers and palms clear. You glint and sparkle with every movement as you pull out his dick from his shorts. He's hard, wet at the tip already.

You lick your lip, and gasp as you bump into the band there.

 _"Go on,"_ he says again, a little harder.

You nod, listen to the sound that makes, and lick at his cock, your eyes sliding shut.

His hands leave you, only the end of your lead still kept in his fist. As if you would go anywhere. You press your forehead against his tunic, inhale a deep breath, and open your mouth to tuck him inside, your tongue curling under the soft, damp head, rocking him in slowly.

He lets out a lush, pleased sigh, and you flush all over, heating the metal with your body as you burn with his approval. When he rocks his hips in, past the little curl of your tongue, you grunt, but take in, flattening and sucking him further in without delay.

The groan is satisfying. You need more. You need more of him, more than his absent touches and grazes as he drapes jewels all over you. You want _him_.

Placing your palms on his chest, you open wide and swallow him, your fingers twitching and clenching in his shirt. He gasps, real surprise for the first time, and follows your tongue all the way to the back of your mouth.

You seal your lips and keep swallowing, until he curses in a terse, tight voice, and grabs the back of your skull.

Your handsome tormentor lifts up a bit on his toes and thrust in, the angle just right to get you in the throat. There's no choice but to swallow, muffled noises eeking out around his cock as you take it all.

"Fuck, that's so good," he says in a rumble, and grabs your chin, holds your head, and pulls his dick all the way out, until you instinctively curl the tip of your tongue under the head again. he takes a breath, then thrusts all the way back in, holding your jaw in place so your lip ring drags against his entire length.

Your throat clicks as you desperately swallow around him again, and he pulls back, does it again, all the way out to just the tip, then all the way in until he's got you in the throat.

You twist your hands in his tunic, sucking in air in a frantic staccato pattern, never quite getting enough. You claw at him, and he just fucks you again and again, and it's so fucking hot, the headrush and his hands in your hair, you rock on your knees,  your own dick hard and bobbing as it follows you.

The boy's grunts twist and turn high, sharp, his cock shoving harder and faster into your mouth. You do your best, trying to take care of him, make him come. After all the work he's put into you, you have to make him come. Make it all worth his while.

So determined on that goal, you cry out bereft when he pulls his cock out of your mouth. You blink up at him, wanting to know what you did wrong.

Then he grips himself, and comes. Stripes of white hit your cheek, your shoulder, down your chest, molten hot and dripping down your skin and over your adornments.

His head falls all the way back, showing his throat as he keep jerking himself, keeps casting a fucking mess all over you. You are stock still, and let it happen. There's no other option.

Then, he's done. Shakes out his hand, and lets out a deep, satisfied sigh.

Slowly, his head lolls forward again, looking down at you.

He grins. "Now," he says. "Finally, you're perfect."

The weight of it all lands solidly on your body. You bend forward, helpless to it, bracing first on your hands, then sinking to your elbows, then sinking down, down, down, into euphoric sleep.

None of it's real. So, you wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Includes:** submission, jewelry, piercings, deepthroating, facial, possessiveness
> 
> This chapter is by Archie. Come back tomorrow for one by Mims!


	2. 2 October - an appreciation for finer things (Chastity Device)

You are bent forward, arms braced on the sink, mouth open, taking carefully even breaths. You know your face is as flushed-pink as it feels, because your reflection in the mirror breathes with you, the shifts in your expression matching in time with the slippery tug on your rim as a troublemaker of a finger slides out of you.

The mirror is… not the cleanest, smears and streaks of soap and water splashed speckling the base of it. It’s odd, the mirror. You don’t know that you’ve ever seen yourself in one before during a dream.

For a moment, you almost reach out to touch the mirror. But you have a more pressing concern.

Your dick is heavy. It feels weighed down, uncomfortable, constrained. You can’t parse it, the feeling of a warm, heavy squeeze all around it. Luckily, your pants are undone and pushed partly off your hips. You look down.

Oh. You’re.

You’re wearing… a cock cage. Bands of metal, warmed by your skin, wrap around your dick, forcing it to remain down in the position it would hang when flaccid. You… aren’t totally soft, not with the fingering you were just enjoying, and your dick strains against the metal, trying to swell and lift but brought up short. The head is flushed and making a valiant effort to push against its confines.

“Hey, now. Eyes up here.”

Your shoulder is flicked ungently, and you jump and jerk your gaze up.

“How’s it feel down there?” he asks, eyes bright and intent with interest.

You frown. It takes a second to get your thoughts in a row. “Like I’ve gone to dick jail.”

He laughs. Reaches around and catches you under the chin, holds your face in place as he leans in and drags the tip of his tongue up the shell of your ear. You shudder, throat clicking around a hard swallow. Your dick throbs unhappily against the bars of the cage, and he laughs again, warm breath against your ear.

“Ready for more?”

You aren’t sure what _more_ entails, but you like the way he looks at you. You want him to keep looking at you like that, so you nod.

He tucks his finger back into you, holding your gaze in the mirror. The sensation of constriction around your dick is… really unignorable. You struggle to keep your eyes open and your hips still, wanting to squirm, though you’re not sure if you want to push further into his grip or wriggle away.

It’s a lot, the conflicting sensations of pleasure and borderline pain. You’re no stranger to the ways pain can be pleasant, to be sure, and that doesn’t help either, because your brain takes the pain of the constriction and turns it into more pleasure. Your hips rock back onto his finger and you make a soft, muffled noise when it slides deeper.

When you do this, your dick… jingles, which is really fucking weird. Your gaze goes down again, and this time you see the small padlock that keeps the cage locked shut.

A hand fists in your hair and jerks your head back. You choke out a noise, torn between a gasp of pain and a whimper when your dick throbs again.

“I said,” he rebukes, “eyes _up_ , Dirk. Watch yourself. You put on such a lovely show, and I’m going to be busy for a moment, so someone has to enjoy how delightful you are in the throes of pleasure. Understand?”

Face flushed even hotter, you nod, biting the inside of your cheek when it just pulls your hair harder against his grip.

“Good boy,” he says, and releases you.

Your head falls forward again in time to watch as he looks away from the mirror, preoccupied with something else. Then you remember his instructions and, with difficulty, make yourself comply. It’s uncomfortable to meet your own gaze. You’d take the cock cage any day over having to look at yourself like this, eyes heavy-lidded and cheeks flushed with arousal. It’s embarrassing to say the least.

Then the fingers in you slide out again, and before you can express your displeasure, something blunt and firm takes their place.

You know the feeling of lube-coated silicone and instinctively relax before you’ve fully registered it, pressing back to help it slide in.

He pushes the dildo into you steadily, letting you feel every inch of it. It has a distinct curve, the head bowing forward to drag against your walls. Something wider presses against your hole, and you think you’ve reached the base, but he presses it against you insistently until your rim stretches around it, taking it in until you reach the widest point. The rest slides in easy and the base settles against you – and you jerk forward with a moan as the head rubs firmly over your prostate.

“Mm, there you are,” he murmurs, tugging and pressing on the toy in turns to work the head over the sensitive bump. “Bet that’s a right tingly tease, isn’t it.”

It’s not phrased like a question; you just let yourself pant for breath. Your flush has reached your hairline and is creeping down your throat. You want so badly to touch yourself.

“Lovely,” he decides. “Posilutely plum perfect. Look at you.”

It’s an unnecessary statement. You already are, and by his command. You watch your eyelashes lower part way when he pets your hip bone with one hand. They’re oddly sharp, in clear focus in the mirror. It’s interesting to watch them flutter with such high definition detail.

“Alright, let’s just…” He lets go of the toy and lets it hang slack in you, held inside by the bulb above the base. You take a steadying breath and try to will blood away from your dick to reduce the squeeze.

He tugs your pants and underwear up, tucks you cage and all neatly away, then pauses to wipe off his hand so he can do up your fly, arms wrapped around you to reach. Then with gentle grip on your back and shoulder, he spins you around to face him, abandoning the mirror.

“…Hi,” you say.

His eyes crinkle. “Hello there. Doing alright?”

“Mhmm.” He’s wearing a necklace, a long thin chain that culminates down at his mid-chest. Hanging from it is a little key. You reach out to touch it, curious, but he catches your hand in a firm grip.

“Nope, I don’t think so,” he says. “We’ve only just begun undergoing this little game of ours, Dirk. You’re not going to be getting this key back any time soon.”

Oh. Right. The padlock. You’re… not even allowed to touch the key. You dig your fingernails into your palm and try to cast about for a distraction.

He nudges you gently out of the way, and you go, puzzled for a moment before he turns the sink on and washes his hands briskly. When he's done, he turns to you, looking calm and casual and not at all like he'd recently been working a dildo into you. "Ready?" he asks.

You're certain that your recent activities must be written all over your face. You can feel the press of the dildo in you when you move, and it keeps you from reaching any level of comfortable stability. Despite all this, you nod, and let him take your hand to lead you out of the bathroom.

What lay beyond the other side of the door hadn't crossed your mind until you stepped through it, and you draw up short when it comes into clarity. "Jake," you say quietly, hesitating. He looks back at you, neutral, eyebrows raised. "I don't know if…"

He tugs you forward firmly until you fall into step with him and let him lead you towards one of the walls. "Hush now," he says in a low tone. "These pieces deserve our most thorough consideration, don't you agree?"

You aren't given a chance to say one way or another. He turns away to evaluate one of the paintings on the wall. There are other people in the room, peripherally, one of them muttering something to another occasionally, moving through the space around you. You can't shake the feeling that someone will look at you and _know_ , unlikely though it is. You sneak a glance downward to your jeans, but you can't tell if the shape of the cage against the crotch of the pants would be obvious to anyone except you.

And to him, of course. He nudges you to ask your opinion on the art with a glimmer in his eyes, something like impishness. He knows he has his hand on the crank that will wind you up further as he turns it, and when he finally decides you've been twisted up enough…

Well. You'll sing for him. You always do.

You hold his hand as you navigate the room together. Having something else to look at helps with the pressure-pain in your pants, but you remain in heightened awareness of your dick. It makes it hard to concentrate, the artwork sometimes swimming and reforming before your eyes when a movement makes the head of the dildo press against your prostate again. Sparks dance behind your eyelids when you squeeze them shut and clutch his hand.

He pulls you close, into his side, wraps an arm around you. "Doing alright, buttercup?"

"'S a lot," you mumble. "Dunno if I'm… giving the gallery its due, uh. Credit. Attention."

He hums thoughtfully. "I might have a fix for that."

"Jake…" It comes out plaintive rather than reproving, and a little too loud. You glance around swiftly to see if anyone is giving you a look.

He grins. "Come on, let's go take a gander at something a little more gripping."

You have no real choice but to follow him as he leads you from the room and then through a larger, open area with big, wall-spanning art and some kind of installation dangling from the ceiling. You almost stop to look, genuinely distracted this time, curious if you're looking at some kind of over-sized mobile, or more of an abstract chandelier, with the faint warm glow in the air, but he tugs at you insistently, shepherds you across the room and — out.

The two of you wind up in a sculpture garden. There is another pair of museum visitors admiring a set of abstract pieces, but they're farther off, out of earshot if you manage to keep your voice down.

"Here we go," he murmurs, keeping you tucked in against his side as he steers you around some woodwork. "A bench, see? So we can take a pause and see if we can't get you a little more focused."

A bench. Sitting down. The dildo hangs in you now, bulb pressing its weight down against the sensitive skin of your sphincter. If you sit, _when_ you sit, it'll be driven deeper into you again.

He sits, and looks up at you. You take a deep breath and follow suit, biting your lip to stifle a moan as heat floods you again from the firm pressure.

He slings his arm around your shoulders again. "What do you think?" he asks.

It takes you a moment to understand that he's indicating the sculpture in front of you. "It… looks like a tree," you say, frowning, trying to parse it and not just focus on trying to stay still. "The… bronze? Copper? It makes, like. The — mmh." You try not to squirm against the dildo. "The trunk. And…"

"And then the leaves," he agrees.

The base of the sculpture is the solidity of the trunk, but from there it breaks into disparate fractals that fragment out into thinner and thinner pieces, each all terminating in a single diamond-shaped leaf.

“It has that thing,” you say, trying to pull the word to mind. “The, the discoloration, when certain metals are left out to the elements—”

“Patina,” he says.

You nod, swallowing hard against the urge to rock against the dildo, grind it against your insides. “Mm, mhm. It’s gone green.”

That was what first drew you to the impression of a tree. Each diamond leaf is weathered, discolored, the patina creeping across and turning them steadily to a deep green. You focus on the color, breathing deeply through your nose, letting him squeeze you in closer to his side. It’s still hard to think about anything else than the pressure and the once again increasing constriction around your dick. The feeling is almost like a caress around your shaft, if caresses were also a steely grip that kept you from relaxing. You turn your face into his shoulder and suck in a hard breath.

He clucks sympathetically. “You poor thing. I’ve got just the thing to sharpen your attention, don’t you fuss. Look up at me, chickadee, I have you.”

You don’t see what he does. Blindly obedient, you look up at him, and he claps his hand over your mouth at the same moment that the dildo in your ass begins to vibrate.

It’s a lucky thing he does, too, or maybe it was his design all along, because your moan is more of a yelp. You can’t keep yourself from squirming, rocking backwards to drive the toy as deep as it can go, then pushing up against the band of Jake’s arms to get the head back against your prostate. The cage around your dick is a vise, squeezing and trapping you and — and it _hurts,_ but it feels good, and the metal is so warm against your sensitive skin.

The vibrator pulses stronger against you and you squirm, involuntarily fighting his hands, Jake’s hands, and you’re making barely audible strangled noises into his palm.

“Shhh,” he says, “Shh, hush, don’t want to be caught, do we? Hush up and be good for me, Dirk, be my good boy, I know you can.”

You fight the sensation, the hot tension and pain and the deeper, slower waves of pleasure from the vibrations. You squeeze your hands into fists, press the side of your face against Jake, and stare fixedly at the sculpture. One of the leaves is almost twinkling in the light, the blips of gold gleaming from the sun amidst the stretch of rougher green. You want — god, you want him to touch you, to be able to touch yourself, to be able to writhe and moan and _do something_  about the sharp stretched feeling of being caught between a cage and — ha, between a hard place and a sensitive bump that you enjoy a hell of a lot more when you know you can come from it.

He releases his hand from over your mouth when you’ve proven you can master the need to be noisy. “There we go,” he murmurs. “That’s it. You don’t get to do anything but feel it.”

You swallow your whimper, swallow the need to say his name or beg him to keep talking. Instead, you fix your eyes on the glimmering leaf and pour all your need into that instead, like a scream of a desperate stare, whole body tight with the intensity of the feeling. He’s right. You do need to be quiet and still, let it look like you’re just two lovers admiring a sculpture together, not let on that anything unscrupulous is happening.

The leaf. Focus on the leaf. Jake pets your arm and hums cheerfully and tunelessly, covering the roughness of your breaths. The sound fills your ears, and in turn you fill your eyes with green.

Green, spreading out to the edges of the leaf, swallowing the reddish gold beneath it. Green, turning to almost a bluer shade towards one acute corner of the diamond. Green, filling your head like the eyes of the boy beside you. Glimmers of brightness slipping through, shocks of sharpness between your legs, an unbearable building pressure that sweeps you in waves, coursing through your belly.

You gasp near-silently for air and grind the side of your face against his shoulder. The air in your lungs, the stinging wetness in your eyes, the sweat gathering on your back, all of them green, all of them his, and it consumes you.

With a restricted pulse against the looped bars of your cage, you… come, you think, though you barely feel it. You feel your dick produce a half-hearted spurt, making a mess of the end of its cage, spunk clinging messily to your skin and dripping out through the gap. You squirm and the shift makes the vibrations shock through you, too much, a sudden flip from good to nearly painful.

“Fuck,” you grit out, tears stinging your eyes harder. “Please—”

“Shh, shh, my fair fancy, my winsome wonder.” Jake cups you in against him, lets you bury your face in his chest and hiccup a sob. The vibrations slow to a stop, leaving you bereft of pleasure with barely an orgasm to speak for it. “My perfect boy, Dirk, you did so good, you did perfect.” He murmurs his own pleasure to you and you swallow his words down, take them in deep where they’ll blossom green in the wreck that he made of you.

You sink into green and rest there until you wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heya its mimsy
> 
> full deets for this chapter: sex toys under clothing, chastity device/cock cage, D/s, ruined orgasm, being (mostly) in public during sexual activity


	3. 3 October - to tundra, by sleep (H/C, Helplessness)

Here, it's winter.

It's always winter here, maybe not literally in the sense of the passage of seasons, but outside the walls of your remote little house, there is nothing but snow as far as the eye can see. Snow on the ground like a bland carpet, snow in the pointy trees that circumscribe the world, snow on the distant mountains, making them blend into the hazy grey-blue clouded sky.

You have lived here as long as you can remember, in this colorless place like dishwater and ink spilled carelessly over a canvas. Even the light seems to drain the saturation from the world.

Gotta keep moving. Lacing up your worn, tar-black boots, you whistle for Sumi and head for the door. If you're still too long, you'll stay that way, becoming a fixed figure in this ink wash painting.

You shake yourself and grimace. It's isolation sickness. You're cracking up.

The dog bounds ahead of you, and you follow, carrying your fishing kit over one shoulder. Your food stores aren't suffering too much yet, but you can feel the way you need a change, something to break the monotony of your life.

Sumi explores the area, keeping a perimeter around you. They never stray far, as desperate for company as you are.

You have this thought, and immediately they let out a _wuff_ that rebounds and echoes around the clearing, and dart to the east at full speed.

You're so startled, you just stare after them for a moment, mouth open. Then you're running after them, full tilt, kicking up snow.

Halfway to the scratchy treeline, Sumi has found something, half-buried. The lump is unnatural against the pristine flat landscape, where slopes in the snow are blasted away by nightly gusts. This one remains, and the dog begins digging desperately at it, barking and whining at you as you approach.

You drop to your knees on the other side of the lump and do the same, shoveling with wide scoops from your arms.

You find a boy in the snow, cold and barely alive. He's the first boy you've ever seen.

(You frown. Is that true? It feels true, bringing something into crystal clarity, like the first time you read _Nausea._ Something bedrock.)

Working together with Sumi, you unearth the boy, and half-carry half-drag him back to your cabin. Fishing can wait for another day.

 

* * *

 

The fire blazes as you stroke it higher and hotter than you can normally stand. Sweat prinkles the back of your neck as you examine the unconscious boy and determine what to do.

His clothes are soaking wet and so cold to the touch it stings your fingertips. Some creases are so lodged with frost, they won't come free.

Fine. This is a desperate time, so you take a desperate measure, and grab your knife. Hopefully the boy isn't overly attached to these clothes, because you begin cutting them off as fast as you can.

Sumi sits nearby and whines, leaning in to lap at the boy's hair and forehead.

This should be clinical. You're saving this man's life. Yet you cannot help but take in the shape of him as you peel him out of more and more ruined clothes. The crook of his elbow is black and blue, badly wrenched. Otherwise, he's perfect, broad with skin that _looks_ soft, prominent handsome jawbone and clavicle and deep cut hips. He's dusted with darker spots like flicked ink, and his eyelashes are dark fanned over his cheeks.

Tossing his clothes aside, you drag a fresh blanket over him, covering his body and silently reprimanding yourself for being a perv. When you check, his cheek is still cold, so you drag the heavy quilt off your bed and to the floor, spreading that over him too.

Sitting vigil at his side, you watch the steady rise and fall of his breaths, waiting for what's next. The grey light darkens as night falls, and you keep waiting.

Eventually, the boy twists, his face a tight grimace as he turns his head towards you. He looks pained, and starts to curl his arms around himself only to wince and stop; his injured arm lays flat against the rug, and his brow deeply furrows.

His other hand reaches out, shaking. You take it, your palm against his. He's _freezing._

He also doesn't want to let you go. You think he's pulling you closer. That's a good idea. A sensible, resourceful, chaste idea to warm him up.

Taking off your boots and pants and one of your jackets, you untuck the blankets and lay down carefully beside him, resting your body partly on his, being careful of his arm.

Stroking your hands over him, you try to quell the shivers. He sighs, sweet and wavering, and presses his nose against your shoulder.

Sleep is a far-off idea, and you watch the boy as he curling around you, hooks his leg over yours, tucks in close. The biting cold starts to fade as he rekindles back to life.

You split your time between watching the fire over his shoulder and checking on him.

Eventually, you look back to him, blinking the afterimage of the flames away, and find his eyes open, looking at you calmly with hazy green.

"Jake," you murmur.

"Shh," he says, and shuts his eyes again, laying his cheek on your shoulder.

 

* * *

 

When he finally wakes, it's the next day, and his eyes are feverish but follow you as you move around the cabin, collecting the things you need to splint his broken arm.

He says he's chuffed as anything to learn he fell into the snow by your cozy abode or else he'd be deep sixed. It was a bear, he says, that sent him running until he succumbed to the icy embrace that covers this land. And dogs are great, aren't they, with those noses of theirs, sniffing out the wayward and lost.

You demur and tell him you're not really a dog person. Which then strikes you as strange, since you've had Sumi forever.

He doesn't question this, just says he's pleased to have met you, even if it was under such treacherous circs. It's a signal, and you introduce yourself.

Then, as he opens his mouth to do the same, you say, "Jake."

He freezes, this time in the sense of going still not dying of cold. Slowly he grins. "Hell's peelin' bells, that's a lucky guess! Are you a snow seer, living out in this damned bewilderness and gleaning mysteries off the flurries?"

You don't think so. That sounds ridiculous.

The cabin is small and doesn't have much in the way of… anything outside the necessities of life, honestly. But Jake seems to like it, and says nice things about your decorating and your choice of books and even the colors of the granny squares on your throw.

He compliments your bed too, even though it's small, barely large enough for the two of you to squeeze into. Since you refuse to subject him to sleeping in your single armchair and he refuses to kick a man from his own bed, you sleep together, curled tight through the night, one pillow tucked under Jake's arm to hold it secure.

He's so warm, you think you've never felt true heat before now, with his soft breathing and his hair curling just slightly at the nape of his neck, an inch from your mouth as you hold him close.

Your life has always been about survival.

Now, life feels fuller.

Jake is slow to recover, but doesn't seem to mind. He helps as much as he can, mostly providing company, taking Sumi out for short walks around the cabin, carrying things with his good arm, stirring stew, anything you'll let him do. But every night, he's drawn and tired, and gets an eager little smile when you announce you're going to bed.

He names you a dozen times: his rugged survivalist, his fetching provider, his dandy candy striper, his taciturn snowbunny, his handsome bedfellow.

None sits quite right. You don't know why nothing fits right. You stand over the fire, poker in your hand, and watching the flickering dance as if it might conjure some revelation for you. Something's not _right_.

Maybe he senses the disquiet in you; since you met him, you've gotten the impression he's a lot sharper than he lets on.

It's deep night as he comes to you, bracing his weight on the shelves then the chairback then the mantle until he makes it precariously to your side.

He takes the poker from you and puts it in its home against the fireplace. "Bed?" His eyes are wide and pleading. "Come to bed, please."

The trip back is hard, and you take Jake's arm to help him. Once you cross the room, he eagerly collapses onto the bed, taking deep breaths of air. "Come on," he persists.

His intention isn't an early tuck in. He grips you as you lean over him, trying to pull you down and whimpering when he can't manage it. "Please," he whispers.

"We shouldn't," you tell him. "You're still recovering. I don't want to hurt you."

"You would never," he decrees, and tries again, his strength failing even faster this time. "Dirk, please."

You take off your clothes, standing naked in the brisk air as you help him out of his clothes too. He starts panting before you even climb in with him, and frankly moans as your weight comes down on him. "Dirk, Dirk, yes."

You are so goddamn careful with him, moving his arm to the side, as far out of the way as he can manage. So distracted, he gets the jump on you, leaning up and brushing his mouth against yours.

Oh. This… feels right.

His legs are nearly boneless as you kneel between them, leaning over him and kissing him like his mouth has the first sip of oxygen you've ever tasted in your life. You feel alight and alive and real, delving into his warm mouth and hearing him moan and feeling the weak but determined grip he has on your neck, it's all like color filling you. Like life imbuing into a cold frozen thing.

By the time you open him up and fuck him, he's wiped out, lax against the bed and just chanting your name in time with every beat of your hips against him. He leaves everything up to you, and you take it on gladly to see him staring up at you with bright wonder.

"Closer," he says, and you bend your body as far as you can, until he can kiss you, uncoordinated but stubbornly sticking to it as you move into him again and again.

You make him come like that, gathering up each of his gasps like snow in your hands. It melts and fades, slipping away, and you gingerly lay over him when you're done.

When you move to pull out of him, he whines, and asks you to stay. So, you both lay like that, warm and tight knit and right.

Jake lifts his head and kisses the top of your head a few times. Each time, you can feel the strain of his muscles as he drags his head up, then slumps back down.

"You alright?" you ask quietly, needing to be sure.

"'Course I am," he replies just as softly. "You're good at this. Taking care of me."

Your brow creases as you think about that. There it is again, the backwards suede feeling in your head, like something is _off._

You brace yourself on an elbow and lift up, staring down at Jake's face, as if you could ordain from his features what the hell is nagging you, what _is that?_

Jake holds your gaze steadily, and after a long moment gives you a sad little smile.  "Lay back down, Dirk."

You do, resting your body across his like a shield, and sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arcturus here. sup.
> 
> content includes: unreality, hypothermia, injury-induced-immobility, hurt/comfort, and jake getting off on dirk taking care of him. because jake english.
> 
> but HM SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HUH. dirk is catching on. next chapter is another one of mine and it's going to be a doozy. an 8,000 word doozy.
> 
> see ya next time, true believers!


	4. 4 October - a taste for absinthe and endless fortune (Prohibition Era AU)

It's a busy night at the Antebordellum when you're finally hit by the card shark the city's been talking about. The speakeasies scattered on either side of the river aren't precisely a close-knit crowd willing to swap information about the house funds or potential miscreants out to profit off the underground blackjack tables, but drivers sometimes have loose lips. You've heard already that some out-of-towner has brawled with the bouncer at the Stormlamp over his winnings and won, just a week after Matchsticks got taken by the same vagabond.

You've kept your eye out for the sight of a new face, waiting for a sign of the man coming into your territory. You are vigilant; owning an establishment such as yours demands a great deal of attention and wiles, as well as a hefty bribe cache.

The problem is that you are just one man, and there is no one you trust enough to look over the incoming stock when it arrives. So it's you who tallies up bottles and barrels, checking against your ledger. With the volumes of illicit goods you're dealing with, this process takes time.

So, you miss the initial infiltration of the shark into your pond, and go about your usual business as the Antebordellum hums with chatter and music.

It feels like a normal evening in every sense. You watch over your new bartender to ensure they're accurate in volume and technique. Then, there are transactions to oversee at the back of the house, where people rent private rooms and private _time_ with some people in your employ. After, you send someone to escort a pair of drunken women home; it's a business expense, making sure people get home after their merriment in your establishment, but it's preferable to setting them loose on the street to gaily blab about the Antebordellum to any passersby.

When you've handled that, you take to the corner of the bar and quietly fix a drink for yourself. Elderflower gin, syrup, and tonic.

Propping up the wall next to the liquor shelves, you survey the floor.

It's dark enough for the patrons to feel safe down here. Dim lights and deep shadows loosen tongues and wallets equally. The only illuminated spots are the musicians' stand, where white light glints off the brass and strings, and the card tables.

Gamblers can't be trusted with sympathetic light. You sip your drink, holding the rim of your glass with your fingertips as you make eye contact with each of your dealers. Staring at each in turn, you wait for them to notice and return your attention. It's a silent check in.

You manage it with three of the four dealers before your bartender sidles over to you. "Strider, sir, 'cuze me."

"Don't lean over the bar," you tell them curtly, watching them sink back on their heels, off the rich dark woodtop. "What?"

"Sorry, sir. Someone just requested a… a Green Sun? I-- I don't know that one."

A Green Sun. You have an encyclopedic knowledge of any subject you give a half damn about, and liquor is your business. The name doesn't ring a bell. "Not a drink in this town. Get them something else."

The bartender looks _queasy._ "Are you certain you've not heard tale of it, sir?"

"It might be some regional drink. Why? What's the problem?"

They lean on the bartop again, lowering their voice. "This gent, he said it's his favorite, sir. Absolutely had to have it. He paid with a tenner, sir."

The most expensive tall drink on your menu was eighty cents.

This wasn't a drink order, it was a challenge.

"Who did it? Don't point. Tell me."

They tell you. It's someone at the blackjack table.

There's a lot of people here tonight. Plenty of regulars and a fair number of guests. The last thing you want is to make a scene. This needs to be handled carefully.

You take off your coat and hang it up on the hook next to the bartender's, then roll up your sleeves, snapping one of the spare garters around each arm.

There's no one in the Grey City that ever left the Antebordellum unsatisfied with the drinks, and that isn't going to change today. So, you pick up a coupe, look over your options, and pour.

On a round tray, you place your concoction as well as another elderflower drink. You have a feeling you might need it.

The blackjack table is one of two you have. As you make your way towards it, you see a woman you vaguely recognize as a regular seated next to the stranger. You don't make it to the table before the woman gathers her bag and mink stole, glaring viciously at the stranger before storming away.

You are close enough to hear a low whistle, and the stranger leans back in his chair. Across from him, the dealer stares at him, then over his shoulder at you, eyes a little wild and plenty nervous.

"Tell you what, I was under the impression this quaint little basement had a surplus of spirits, what's it take for a fellow to get a pour?" he says, and he's not from the city at all, you don't know where he's from with a wandering accent like that, but he's not from _here._

"Take a break," you tell the dealer as you reach the table.

Like a bullet from the chamber, the young lady bolts, essentially fleeing from the cards.

Circling the table, you set down the tray, keeping your eyes on your hands as you rest it on the felt. Only then do you sit down, across from the stranger, and face him.

His elbows are on the table, and there are cards left between you. He has perfect blackjack while you have bust. He also has several stacks of chips, striped white and grey.

He grins at you, making crows feet leap out from the corners of his eyes. "Well, aloha. You are not just that poor card-shuffler's relief."

"No," you tell him curtly, and place his drink in front of him.

It's as green as his eyes, and your best approximation of his request: absinthe, soda, and a sugar cube sitting at the bottom. The cube is starting to lose shape around the corners, giving a fair approximation of a bright center to the drink.

He flashes a grin at you. "Oh, you are not the average gin mill, are you? This looks a treat compared to all the glasses of bubbles and mint I've been given at the other booze shelters." He lifts it to you. "Cheers! Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr…?"

"Strider. Owner of the booze shelter." You toast him in return, then take a swallow of your drink.

He does the same, and his eyes light up in plain faced glee. "Well, you know how to mix a cocktail, Strider, I'll tell you that for free."

For a man sitting in front of the owner of the place he's trying to pull a fast one on, he doesn't look nervous. It's an even match then, as you don't so much as blink as he starts to turn chips over the backs of his fingers, showy and smug, his grin fixed firmly in place.

Setting your glass aside, you gather up the cards and start to shuffle them idly. "My dealers are trained to raise alarm if anyone starts to pull in too many good hands. How'd you manage this?"

"Oh this?" He looks adoringly at his pile of chips, as if it were a beloved pet or prized possession. "I mean, I didn't drag this out of _one_ dealer, see, I hung around until the first one started to give me some looks, then excused myself for some floor flushing-- the music you've got here is the absolute jams, by the by-- then settled down at the next one. It takes a bit and is a little tedious, having to flit about 'til the suspicions gone, but…" He gestures at his chips proudly.

Goddammit. "Clever," you tell him mildly.

"Thank you! The other places didn't think so. It's not the simplest trick to pull, you know."

"How much have you accrued?"

"Oh, I'm not at all sure. Hang on a mo', I'll count the kitty." He starts counting out chips into ten-stacks. He's not very quick at it, taking too much time to stand them neatly up. In the meantime, you count for yourself.

Three forty. Jesus fucking Christ.

He stills, apparently seeing something in your face, and abandons his tower building. "Seems you're faster than me."

Not in the ways that counted. You grimace and spread out the cards in a fan across the table. Tipping one side of the fan on your finger, you flip it, and watch every card flip to back-side up, green curls of ornate ivy in heavy print gleaming up at you.

The stranger takes a swig of his drink, and makes a face. Which, of course; it's not exactly the sort of cocktail you _swig._ "What're you thinking there, compadre?"

"Weighing options," you tell him coolly. "Throwing someone out of the place looks bad, word gets around, fewer people want to come in." You flip the cards back the other way. "Losing over a week of profits to a card counter who snuck into my tables also looks bad."

"Hey, now, you're already hopping ahead there!" His arm curls protectively around his chips. "Don't catastrophize anything just yet, Strider. I'm a reasonable man, maybe we can come to an arrangement."

"I don't do payment plans," you tell him.

"No, no, I mean…" The stranger's head pivots and turns like a lazy susan, taking in all the Antebordellum has to offer. His gaze flicks past the back of the shop, then jerks back to settle on there.

You glance back there. There is a dark hallway leading to the spare bedrooms. One of your bouncers stands before it, a sentry between the patrons and the girls and boys who work the back rooms.

"Absolutely fucking not," you tell the stranger, feeling the tension in your voice pull taut, on the verge of snapping.

He meets your eyes again, blinking. "What?"

"You're not being recompensed in trade. I don't do tabs either, and whatever someone takes out of a person that amounts to over three hundred dollars, I'm not allowing it."

His eyes widened, and his lips part in some dawning understanding. "Now see here, Strider, I don't think I like what you're implying!"

You wave your hand and lean back in your chair, crossing one leg over your knee.

His eyes drop from yours, and flick away somewhere. You're not sure what he's looking at, maybe just your posture? You're not sure what's so fascinating about that. "There must be something," the stranger murmurs, voice pitched low. "Tell me, what are the rates?"

"For the back rooms?"

He nods.

"Three dollars for the comfort of a standard room. Five for the suite. Then, the workers set their own prices depending on what you want."

He starts to fidget, spinning a chip like a coin on the felt top. "Ballpark it for me. The standard, erm, menu prices."

"It doesn't matter. If you wanted to order everything off the so-called menu from all five of them simultaneously, it still wouldn't amount to half those chips." And you're not sure you like this game of negotiating terms with him. The cost you would have to swallow is too large; you can't just have the workers all give you an enormous freebie. And the idea of setting this man loose on them makes your skin prickle.

You look past the stranger, seeing which of your enforcers is nearby. To hell with it, you'll take the reputation hit and throw him out. It'll be less expensive than the alternative.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait! What about--" He scoots his chair over, situating himself between you and the bouncer you were trying to hail. "What about you?"

"What _about_ me?"

Gnawing his lip, it starts to darken with a bruise. Then, all at once, he pushes his chips across the table at you.

You stare down at the pile, then back up at him, eyebrows lifted. "Are you giving me this?"

"No, this is-- is a transaction." The anxiousness bleeds out of him as he speaks, a smile curling his lips as he gains speed. "It's quite the conundrum that we've found ourselves in. Letting a high roller leave here without his earnings, that could be very bad for business. Especially given the law's stance on such things."

Eyes narrowing, you open your mouth to call for your enforcer.

He shakes his head hard, and keeps going. "But I also don't want to put you in that position, Strider, honest to pete. You seem a good man and you look after your own, and I'm not so stonehearted to ignore that. So, let's find an equitable solution that lets me leave here with my kneecaps intact and you with your fine business all copacetic." He nods to the pile of chips and holds your gaze.

You wait, as if he'll explain. When he doesn't, you polish off your drink. "I'm listening."

"Oh, well... " He lets out a little laugh, cheeks darkening. "I figured if nothing on the menu would work, I could just…. order off menu? Say… that suite you mentioned, and you."

"Me," you say, completely confused. Comprehension hits you like a bolt from Zeus himself. "You want--"

Now, his grin is brilliant and sharp as a shiv. "Indeedy-do. Not that the lads and lasses you have on offer don't seem lovely, but if I had my druthers and a certain _leverage._ " His eyes drag over you, your sprawled posture. Immediately, you put your foot back down and sit up straight. "What say you, Strider? Settle the account and bring it to black all at once, no need for any trouble for either of us."

He wants to take you to one of the back rooms. To the _suite._ For three hundred and forty dollars.

The wolfish set to his face makes it clear what he has in mind.

You look away, casting around for eye contact with… someone, as if anyone would be able to help.

The stranger leans forward on the table, deleting most of the distance between you. "Easy there, no need for fuss. This can all end on the up-and-up. You are quite the dish and I'm willing to make all this trouble go away for…" His tongue touches his lip, there and gone again in a flash. "Just a few hours of your time."

"For _what,_ exactly?" you ask, that tension in you pulling even more tight.

A darker hunger fills the man's gaze, and he sits back, gesturing to the tokens of wealth scattered across the table. "For whatever three hundred and forty gets a gentleman on a night like this."

You don't know the answer. Not yet, anyway.

It must be writ on your face, that you're going to say yes. Call it pragmatism or good business sense or something _else_ , but you're going to say yes.

The stranger stands, and lifts his drink to you before finishing the last of it. Setting it down on the table, he smacks his lips wetly and says, "Well, come on then, Strider. Let's go see what I've bought."

 

* * *

 

You lead the way into the back hallway. If your fast dealing shark tried to approach the bouncer himself, there would be blood at the very least. As it is, you nod to the lounging night courtiers when they wave at you and smile.

The stranger follows on your heels, into the hallway, where the acoustics are different, and the band outside sounds distant. With every step, it fades more, until you reach the door at the opposite end of the hallway.

The door keys hang on a silver hoop you keep on you at all times. Drawing it out of your pocket, you flip through the keys until you find the one you want, recognizing it by the shape of its teeth alone.

You can feel him nearly against your back as you unlock the suite and hurry in, just to get some distance.

When you're both in, the door locks itself behind you. There's a finality to it.

The suite is aptly named, as close to the Ritz as you'd find in the underground. A chandelier with green glass droplets illuminates the room just enough to be atmospheric for the sort of business that happens here. There's a large bed with a sturdy headboard and footboard, each with helpful notches. Beside it is a very well stocked nightstand, with a chilled bottle of Banyuls resting like a cherry on top.

You stand in the room, looking around as the shark immediately undoes his tie and his cuffs. His shirt is a pale inviting seafoam under his dark jacket.

Green. You rub your eyes.

"I'll admit to being impressed, Mr. Strider. This is a fancy little affair tucked in the back of your abode. What it lacks in a view of the river, well." He pivots on his heel to grin at you, eyes starting at your shoes and dragging up to your eyes. "It makes up for plenty."

You feel like there's a lens over your eyes, something magnifying, making everything crisp and vibrant, but also putting blinders on you. Pressing your fingers to your temples, your lip curls. "That's not right," you mutter. "Wait."

The man who is not a stranger turns to fully face you, a look of contrition on his face. "What's that, Strider? Not reneging on our little arrangement already, are you?"

You shut your eyes tightly and count to three, then open them again. "Banyuls wasn't popularized in the Prohibition era. And a basement speakeasy might have gambling, but it wouldn't have felt tables and _printed chips_ like a casino." You suck in a breath and let it out, wavering like a slowing top. "You're doing this. Jake. This isn't just me having a weird run of fucking wet dreams, this is _you?"_

All around you, the world flickers like reverse static. The details flood in, the _color_ flows in, like a TV coming into tune. Only now do you realize the entire world looks like some chiaroscuro pretentious film shit, all black and white, heavy shadows and greyscale all around you. Or, no, the only color you see is green. Jake's eyes, the wine bottle, the lamp overhead, and the garter snapped around your arms. Green.

Jake lifts his eyes, looking nervous. "No, no, balderfuckingdash, Dirk, don't!" He looks frantically around, as if expecting the walls to cave in around him. "I know I ballsed the last one up, but this one is good, don't wreck it now!"

"Wreck what and how? What's going on?" You step in closer to him. He looks ridiculous in his fancy suit. Also unfairly handsome, but what else is new? "These dreams. You're doing them? Why?"

"For fun! Just for fun! Oh fuck, listen just don't-- it doesn't work if you're not into it! It'll all fold in like the cool bits of _Inception_ and we'll wake up before making good on all this. And, come on, this dream is neat as the fucking dickens! I made sure this one worked for you, and look at you! All debonair and dangerous and running your own old timey bar, like yowza."

This one. Your brow furrows as you remember-- "There was a cabin. And you nearly died in the snow. I… had a dog?"

Jake grimaces. "Yeah, I got that one wrong. Lucky it didn't snap out from under our feet, you were just not feeling it."

"Why would you give me a dog," you ask, baffled. "I'm not a dog person. I mean, I'm not exactly a cat person, but it's a better fit."

Sighing, he rolls his eyes, then yelps as there's a cathode tube pop somewhere. "Cat person. I'll keep that in mind. But, okay, okay, cripes and fuck, I just wanted to have a little fun, and I figured spending the month just going through some ideas I've had would be a fun activity we'd both enjoy! You usually like my ideas, and in here, we can get a lot more adventurous."

"So it's hope power bullshit?" you ask, calming. As soon as you do, the colored glitch snow that began filling in the world eases off, going greyer, settling.

"Er, sort of. I kind of workshopped it with a… mutual friend. Basically, I can make the big zany shit happen, but only alongside your _heart_ power bullshit, capisce?" He waves around. "This one's the most vivid one yet, so you gotta admit you're pretty into it. This whole shebang just derails if you're not into it."

"You didn't want to mention this before?" you ask, a little sullen.

Jake has the grace to look sheepish, rocking on his heels and running a hand through his hair. "I… okay, I don't want you breaking this dream by any means, buuut I did want to see how long it took you to suss things out. Like, gosh, how many hot and heavy dreams can you write off as just your overactive libido?"

"You never get to say shit about my libido, you're using your god powers to have a different weird sex dream every night."

"But good weird?" Jake asks, and fucking waggles his eyebrows at you.

You shrug. "Yeah, but lets not pretend my standards are that high."

Jake snorts, and his shoulders slump a little. The smile he gives you isn't sharp or detached at all. "Now you're all caught up. Could we…? I was sort of enjoying this round."

Yeah, you too. "Sure. Should I-- we can restart the scene, like we just walked into the suite."

"Oh, no, no. Don't you fret your perfectly groomed head about that!" He lifts a hand, thumb to his middle finger, and winks at you. "I've got this."

He snaps his fingers. The world obligingly returns to shades of ink and white light and vivid green.

The stranger walks his fingers over the baseboard of the bed, then grabs it to give it a rough shake. It doesn't move much, and he nods. "No expense spared, I see." His eyes settle on you again. "I suspect I might actually get my money's worth, Strider."

Your breath rattles like old metal in your chest. "If I leave this room bleeding, you won't make it out of the building alive."

He tsks loudly and walks over to you so swift and sudden, you have to tighten your hands into fists to resist the urge to back away. "Strider, Strider, Strider…" He sighs. "I'm a man who plays his cards face up. You're clearly not. But you've got tells, and I know enough." His hand strokes your vest, his thumb pressing on the buttons as he trails down to the one over your navel, making you suck in your gut. "How long has it been?"

You aren't going to tell him it's been years. That throwing yourself into your work has only made bridging that gap harder. That you've become almost resigned to your position in the world, with all the sacrifices that entails.

His eyes are shining as he stares at you. It stings, and you try to turn away, only for him to grab you by your tie. Looping the length of it around his hand, he yanks you back until you are nearly nose to nose. "Lonely life you lead. You could stand to lose more often."

Your lips peel back over your teeth in an honest to god snarl at this presumptuous trickster who dared screw with you. Before you can think to do something deeply satisfying-- like maybe headbutting him to teach him a lesson about personal space-- before all that, he steps back from you, and yanks you to follow. You stagger a step, and nearly fall into him as he stops again.

His hands fist in the back of your shirt, one hooking through your vest, and he moves you like you're nothing, a drunken dance to the side, then back until your legs hit the bed and kick up from the force of his shove.

You both go down together, his weight knocking the air out of your lungs. Digging an elbow back, you try to push yourself over, dislodge him and maybe throw him off the bed. Would serve him some goddamn justice.

He rides you like a bucking horse, letting out a surrus of "shhh, sh sh, shhh," as he leans on you. "Enough of that, already."

His palms press down on your shoulders, and all his weight comes to bear, holding you flat. You pant, staring up at him.

He smiles, smoothing his hands down your chest. "I've been known to enjoy a tussle or two, sometimes even as an aperitif." His thumb finds the soft skin under your chin and pushes, forcing your head back. "But not tonight. Lower those hackles and just try to relax."

"You expect me to relax like this?" you ask him incredulously.

He hums and traces his thumb down, over the line of your throat. Stroking down, he coaxes the collar of your shirt open.

"I do believe," he says softly, "I want to see what you're hiding under your prim and proper. That'd be a very good start."

He slides down to sit over your hips and starts to divest you of your clothes; he undoes buttons, slips his hands under your vest, loosens your tie. The slow drag of the silk being pulled from around your neck sends a tingle down your spine, and you arch, gasping.

Blissfully, he doesn't comment, just opens your shirt from the neck down. With each button, he spreads open the shirt as much as he can, gaze locked to the new skin on display.

Palming your stomach, he watches avidly as your breathing deepens. Smiles at the hitch in your breath.

He snaps your arm garters before taking them off, then grabbing fistfuls of your shirt to haul you to sitting, taking that off too. He squeezes your shoulders, feels up your biceps, and lets out a little whistle.

"Turn that frown upside down, Strider," he tells you, taking your face in his hands and stroking his thumbs over your brow, down the curve of your temple, pressing into the hinge of your jaw until you have to open your mouth. "I've got some ideas you're going to enjoy. Now shuck the rest of that off for me."

He lets you go, and climbs off you. Flipping onto his ass, he scoots to the head of the bed, toeing off his shoes as he goes.

Sitting at the headboard, he gives you an expectant look.

Fine. You stand and strip, doing your best to keep it staid and clinical. Shoes, socks, pants. You take the moment to fold the pants, then finally push down your boxers to the floor.

As you consider bending to pick those up too-- you could fold them up too to be obstinate, but you'd have to bend over, and your high roller has quite the whistle-- you hear a sloshy disturbance behind you, and turn.

He has the wine bottle in one hand, working the corkscrew in with the other. It comes out easily and he tosses the cork and screw aside in one piece. "None for you, I'm afraid. Your mouth'll be otherwise occupied." Demonstrating, he spreads his legs and places one of the spare pillows between them, then taps the pillow briskly. "Lay down, clementine, get comfortable."

That's acutely the problem with the set-up: it's far too comfortable. Your skin hums with the light chill in the air as you set a knee on the bed. The heat rushes to your face as you place a hand on the bedspread and lean in, drawing in closer to him. He nods and crooks his fingers encouragingly as you draw closer.

He takes a belt from the wine, mouth to glass mouth, and lets out a pleased _ah_ sound before directing you to put your elbows on the bed around his hips and lay out between his legs. The bed is barely long enough for this arrangement, what with the considerable length of your legs.

You're balanced over his hips, almost directly over his belt.

He smiles, and one-handed opens his belt. You thought he might make you do this part, but somehow it's worse (or better), watching him open up his trousers just enough, pushing them down, and taking his flushed, hard dick in his hand, pointing it up at you.

You shift, lifting up on your elbows, feeling… really out of control here, against him, against _yourself_.

Maybe he senses it, because he has the audacity to stroke a hand through your hair, making a comforting hushed noise. "Been a while, been probably too long for you. We'll get your memory jogging, Strider, we'll have it doing a marathon in no time. Now."

He holds himself in place for you as you move your body into a better position, your chest against the pillow, and fuck, you're at the perfect height to do this, to catch the tip against your pursed lips and just hold it there. It's just barely damp at the tip; you part your lips enough to touch tongue to the slit. That's-- familiar, but distant. It's been such a damn long time.

He watches you for a moment before seeming satisfied and taking another drink of wine. Settling back, he relaxes, keeping his hand lax on your bicep where its hooked over his hip.

You shut your eyes and work on coaxing his cock a little further in, until your tongue can curl around him. You ease back, take a breath, then try again, pressing your lips tight around him.

There's a little pleased hum above you. Maybe you're still good at this.

Remembering the nuances of this takes a little time. You shift around him again, recalling where your gag reflex is and trying to work around it. Bunching up the pillow a bit gets you high enough over his cock to let you fall onto it right, your tongue sliding out and in to stroke along the underside as you do.

Spread over him like you are, you can feel the tension twinge in his legs and it bolsters you. Yeah, you know this. You seal your mouth and suck gently at him, trying to time it with the flicks of your tongue.

He sighs, but you think it might just be because he's swallowed another belt of wine. Either is fine.

Just as you're getting into the feeling of it, the rhythm of your head moving up and down in a slight bob, just enough to work your lips over him, the stranger places his hand in your hair. This you reasonably expect to lead to some good old-fashioned mouth fucking, but instead he fingers a few locks of your hair before pressing down on the back of your head.

You follow the direction, sinking down and taking almost all of him into your mouth. But his hand doesn't relent, and you open your eyes, trying to look up at him.

You can barely see him, just a glimmer of his eyes and the curve of his smile. His chest is moving steadily around his deep, steady breaths though.

Mouth full, you lay there, legs loosely curled against his for warmth, your fingers tucked against him. For a while, you're waiting for what his next command is.

Then, seconds turn to minutes, and you watch him take another drink of wine. His hand strokes your hair idly, but keeps you in place. You give him a sharp suck, and he tsks, shaking his head. "Now, don't do that. I'm not raring to go and hit that plateau just yet. Let's just enjoy the moment. We've got plenty to spare, tonight."

 _Let's._ You consider that, the thought rising past all the muscle memory and focus you've laved on him. Are you enjoying the moment? That seems unlikely, given the circumstances that brought you here.

But it's terribly, uncannily comfortable. Easy to just shut your eyes and lay still. Your lips are opened wide, your mouth is full and hot with the weight of his cock. Sighing out your nose, you shift and resettle around his hips, your hands going limp against the bed.

The stranger sighs back at you and drags his nails over your scalp, from front all the way to the back of your neck. You can't recall the last time anyone did that, even in your brief liaisons in the past few years. A shiver breaks through you, and you make a muffled noise.

"It's more of a federal crime than any bootlegging that you've been left all 'lone like this," he murmurs, tone almost conversational. Not that you're in position to respond. He keeps running his nails through your hair. "Your mouth is some sort of paradise, Strider. Keeping it locked behind those lips, away from those who'd appreciate it, I don't know how you sleep at night."

You open your eyes enough to roll them. The idea's ridiculous.

"I'm serious. You don't need to find yourself over a proverbial barrel to have this sort of fun. A literal one will do." He must think he's funny. You don't pay him any mind, just idly explore his cock with your tongue. "You don't seem convinced down there. Or maybe you're just preoccupied?"

You suck him, long and sustained. He curses and gives you a sharp tap on the cheek. You stop.

"What's barricading your way? No, don't tell me. Hm, hm, hmmm." He taps the wine bottle against his chin for a second, then indulges in another quick sip. "A dashing attractive bachelor of the confirmed sort, already dealing with alcohol in the age of the Johnny Law saying no. Hell, you even have a swanky little room like this just waiting for you."

You'd laugh if your mouth wasn't full. You'll get away with it this time. It's unlikely anyone will question you this once, but if they do, it'll be easy to make is sound like you took this man aside for a private audience. With the right inflection and the correct phrasing, you'll leave them assuming the unwelcome card shark had the fear of god put in him.

It wouldn't work a second time.

He flirts with the curve of your ear with one finger. "If the fellows knew, you could have any you want. Seems a damned shame to leave you wanting like this."

 _Wanting?_ You shut your eyes again, brow furrowing.

"I can just picture it, can't you? It's not so farfetched as you make it seem." He presses on your brow to smooth it again. "A swinging joint where the gin flows like water, good music, well-intentioned but ultimately lax security on the card tables," you huff around his dick, annoyed, and he laughs. "And the king of his little castle having his pick of the night, whoever he wants to take him to the presidential suite."

Sounds frankly idiotic to you, so ungrounded from reality it's cosmic. You start to work willpower back into your arms to lift off him to tell him so, but the gentle friendly stroke of his fingers turns solid and heavy, holding you down.

You grunt, and rub your legs against the bed, turning your hips. You're surprised at how hard you are, given how little attention he's given you.

Though maybe that's not true…

"Fine. You're a man of caution, that much is clear. Can't let someone _else_ hold any blackmail over you." He strokes your hair again, and you muffle another sound into his body. "Still… leaving you all untouched and alone is like leaving some fancy painting in a warehouse somewhere."

When he finally takes his hand away from you, you stutter out a moan. "None of that, pet. Come up here."

Getting yourself sitting upright again, you sway like a lightweight having his first night on a barstool. Luckily, your stranger braces you, hands on your arms. Pulling closer takes more coordination than you seem to have right now, and you clutch at his shoulder and leg to drag yourself closer.

He smiles almost sweetly and rubs the back of his hand against your stomach, down to almost touch your cock. Abruptly, he changes direction, and cups your ass. Working together, you manage to sit astride his hips. The way you rub against his shirt makes you groan, resting your head on his shoulder.

"Perfect, that's just perfect, Strider. Right where I want you." He nudges your head back, until you squint at him, confused.

He sets the bottle to your lips. Oh.

His hand holds your jaw as you take a long drink. It's not as chilled anymore, but it's still good.

Pulling it away from you, he sets the bottle aside and coaxes you back in. You are more than happy to slump against him and lazily frot your dick against him until the sensation zings through you. He pets your back as you do, and whispers, "Good, Strider, so good," against your ear.

For a while, he leaves you to it. You work yourself up to full hardness, getting acquainted with the feeling of his neck under your mouth.

Then, he hitches you closer to him and tucks a slick finger in you, making you choke on a gasp.

"Fuck, yes," he says into your ear. You dig your nails into the backboard as he starts to work at you. "You're going to open right up for me, Strider. How thick are the walls in here? Can they hear you scream my name, because that'd give away the game, I bet."

You grit your teeth on a groan and shudder as he tugs at your rim. Fuck, fuck, fuck, you haven't done this in _years_ , how did you live that long without it? "Don't-- don't know it."

"Oh," he says, sounding genuinely surprised. "Well, that works out then." His hand vanishes for a moment, then comes back nearly wet, and works two fingers into you.

"Shit," you grit out, rising up on your knees. He follows you, gets knuckle deep as you shake and hit your fists against the headboard. It's so fast, so much, and you're still so damn relaxed from being his easy little cockwarmer before, you just don't have a grip on fucking anything as he shoves his fingers in you.

"Don't you wanna know why," he says, his voice still unbearably conversational. "Why it works out so splendidly?"

"No," you grunt, and bite your lower lip hard. It hurts. Fuck. "Why?"

He laughs. "First, come on. Ease up, just a bit." His hand is slick as it presses against your lower back, coaxing you. You lift, your knees shaking, from being too lax, from the sudden shock running through your body, the dissonance fucking with you.

You're up, then he presses down on your thigh, and you sink back, right onto his dick.

The walls are thick here. It's a godsend, and you shout and feel the way your throat aches.

He mouths your jaw, your chin, bites your lower lip. "Mmm, yes. Strider, you're too good to leave on-- on the top shelf just collecting dust." The stutter in his voice, the first sign of how affected he is, is gasoline on the embers burning in your gut. "The guilt would kill a man."

Whatever, you don't give a shit. Gripping the headboard, you rock on him, your head full of how hot he is inside you, how slick he is. You did that, your mouth, fuck. Now you get to have him, and relish how he opens you up as you rock into his lap.

His hand fumbles for a grip on your hip, retaking control and setting the pace. You tolerate this because it still feels fucking amazing. How _did_ you give this up?

"So," he pants. "So, I think it all-- all works out. I'll be your anonymous midnight caller." He bites your lip again, pulls at it until it hurts and you moan. "Yeah, that's it. You won't let anyone else have you. But I already-- I know, and I'll come back." He fists a hand in your hair, not at all gentle this time, and bites your neck as you ride him. "You'll like that, Strider. Won't say so, 'course, but--"

"Fuck you," you manage between hitching gasps.

"But you'll unlock this room eee-everytime, and--" He holds you hips pinned to his and fucks into you, rough and banging the heavy sturdy headboard back against the wall, and people might hear _that,_ shit, he's going to ruin everything for you. "Come on, c'mon, Strider, I won, give-- give it up."

You come like a blow to the chest, clawing at his shirt, he's still fully fucking dressed as you come all over him and muffle your scream into his neck. It hurts almost, it's so much, like a valve finally blowing after a long fucking time, and you clutch him and come.

Spilled over his lap, he holds you tight to him, his lips against your ear. You can hear his every sound and breathe as he shoves up into you again and again, and fills you with molten heat.

Laying on the bed after, catching your breath, he sprawls hot and heavy over your body, nuzzling and licking your shoulder. Your toes curl with a shivery aftershock. Christ, you forgot how this feels.

Reaching out, you snag the bedspread and yank at it, pull until it comes loose enough to drag it over you both. Your whole body hurts. Your jaw needs a rest.

Your _midnight caller_ bites your earlobe, hard enough to make you jerk. "Mhpf. Rest up, but don't you sleep." His hand goes tight around your thigh. "I've got the rest of the night."

"Fine," you say, voice heavy and drowsy.

He kneads your flesh greedily. "And any other night I want."

 _Fine,_ you think, and squeeze your eyes shut. Opening your legs, he spreads over your body, touching you with wide, claiming hands, and you groan, and let your head sink back against the bed.

You sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Archie here. Shout out to Gdocs for losing/displacing/SOMETHING 1.5k of the fucking story and making me fix it at 12:20AM. Hopefully it's fixed now.
> 
>  **content info:** Prohibition era AU, blackmail, prostitution, cockwarming, puns, historical inaccuracies
> 
> Now that we know what's going on, we can have some _fun._


	5. 5 October - double-blind and double-bind (Fuck or Die)

There is nothing soft in this entire room. Nor is there anything warm. You wrap your arms around your knees to hug them in closer, trying to keep the cold concrete from seeping all of your body heat away.

You can see yourself reflected in the mirror that spans the length of an entire wall, and you're certain there are people on the other side, watching. The same people who had you strapped down while they took your vitals and then stripped you of your clothes before they tossed you into this room, and probably the same people who knocked you out and transported you here to wake up strapped down in the first place.

They aren't high on your list of likable people right now, fair to say.

The door you came in through doesn't have a handle on this side. Shut, it blends in almost invisibly with the wall. You already tried to pry it open to no avail. There's another door, on the opposite wall to the first. You only found it by dragging your fingertips along the wall, though it's more obvious now that you know it's there.

You don't like that there's another door. It makes you very nervous as to what's going to come through.

It's uncomfortable to be nude when you know you're being watched. They've seen you already, both when they stripped you and when you explored the room, but it's still a gross, crawling feeling, invisible eyes on your bare skin.

You have goosebumps all up and down your arms, and your feet and ass are aching from the cold floor. Could these assholes not have sprung for a space heater or something, like goddamn, you're going to have hypothermia before whatever's going to happen finally happens.

In the end, they open the same damn door they threw you in through. The door opens out towards you, blocking the view of whoever opened it, but moments later someone tumbles through, the door slamming shut behind them, and —

You jump to your feet without another thought and are at his side in an instant. "Jake!" you say. "Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?"

Jake makes a muffled, pained sound, which does not reassure you. "D'rk," he mumbles, still on his knees and bent over double.

You slide an arm around his back and let him slump against you. His skin is shockingly warm after the chill of the room, almost burning hot against yours. "It's me," you promise. "I've got you, it's me."

"Mmh." He rubs his face against you. "Dirk, they got me with something."

"Yeah, me too, I guess it must've been chloroform, it put me right out and I woke up here."

He shakes his head, then nods, which is confusing. "No, they shot me up with some shuddersome goop. Jus'... just now. Not before."

"Shot…" Your hand presses against his bicep, and he winces and pulls away from it, tucking more in against you. An injection site. Fuck. Jake still won't uncurl, as if his stomach was upset. Maybe it is. You don't have any way of knowing what they injected him with.

You're…

You're scared.

"It's going to be okay," you tell him. "We'll ride this out together, whatever they're going to do to us, okay?" You try to rub his back comfortingly, but he barely seems to notice. "I'm right here with you, I promise, alright? Jake?"

"Hanns," he says, consonants running together. "You… ngh. Dirk."

"Uh." You try to piece together some meaning from this. "Me. My… hands?"

"'S nice," he mumbles. "Don' stop."

You obligingly keep touching him, running a soothing hand over his back. Jake likes to touch and be touched. You think he finds it reassuring. It's easy to shift in closer, change your balance so you can tuck yourself over him, rest your body against his like a shield. He's yours. Nothing that could happen will change that for you.

"Is it the injection?" you ask quietly. "Do you feel sick?" He still feels burning-hot to you, even when you think you should be warming to match him. You reach around him to press your hand to his forehead. He makes a low, pained sound and leans into your touch.

He doesn't respond to your question, though. Frowning, you press your fingers to his neck instead, up under his jaw. You don't have anything to time by, so you just compare it to your own pulse. His is… fast. Almost alarmingly fast.

"If you need to lie down, you can lie against me," you tell him, trying to bite down your fear so it doesn't show in your voice. "It'll be warmer that way."

Lying down might help his heart rate decrease, if this is any ordinary kind of physical distress. You've seen him get anxious before, and this is certainly a situation that warrants anxiety. A panic attack would explain why he won't uncurl, but he's quiet, almost eerily quiet, and his breathing is even. A little fast, but nothing unusual.

You're practically chewing a hole through your tongue to try and restrain the urge to keep asking questions. "I'm going to switch sides so I can see where they injected you," you tell him, and make to pull back.

Jake's hand shoots out from where it had been curled between his body and his thighs to latch onto your wrist. "Don't!" he says, and now he does sound panicked. "Don't go, I, I need." He turns his head, and you startle at how dilated his pupils are, just the barest circle of green around the black. "Need you."

"I'm here, I'm here," you say, and some of your distress is leaking into your voice despite your best efforts. "I want to help. Please let me help."

He still has a firm grip on your wrist, almost too firm, squeezing your bones. Jake uses it to reel himself in, barely uncurling, more crawling halfway into your lap and tucking his face into your arm. You hold still, uncertain, as he takes weirdly deep breaths, as if your skin was some delicate perfume he had to take the time to appreciate.

When he doesn't make any further moves to do anything or say anything, you wrap your free arm around his back again, trying to urge him up against you better. You cast a nervous glance towards the mirrored wall. What the hell is their game here?

Christ, would they have given Jake something dangerous? Would they care if he was allergic to something they gave him? You hate this so much, and you feel almost sick with fear.

Giving into the chemical cacophony of flight or fight in your brain, you wrest your arm free of Jake's grip and use both of your arms to lift him upright, off of your lap. He doesn't fight or resist, almost limp, dead weight to hoist back. His eyes are glazed, and he's almost shivering, even though he's still too warm to the touch, and he's.

He's.

"Um," you say, in a stunning display of quick-witted intellect.

Jake — moans, shifting restlessly, hands reaching for you again. You let him grab you and pull himself in until he's half-astride you and can tuck his face in against your throat. He doesn't content himself with just sniffing your skin this time, and instead opens his mouth against you, breathing damp air and dragging wet almost-kisses against the junction of your shoulder and neck.

You shiver despite yourself, shooting another look at the mirror. What the fuck is this? It's… beyond fucked up, a group of faceless people watching from behind the wall while Jake shifts restlessly until he can frot haphazardly against your thigh.

“Okay,” you say. “So you need… that. Right.”

Jake makes a noise that edges closer to pain against your neck. “Please,” he manages. “I—”

He breaks off with a pained whine, tremors breaking out over his body. He jerks harder against you, uncoordinated, almost frantic for a moment before he subsides, panting and breathless.

“Okay.” You swallow hard and involuntarily squeeze him closer. “Let me just…”

Jake puts his hands on your shoulders and _shoves_ you back, and you tumble to the ground in a graceless sprawl, taken off guard. He crawls on top of you, presses a leg between yours. Your hands come up reflexively.

He looks almost wild-eyed, both desiring and… as scared as you feel. You swallow a pang.

“Dirk,” he pleads, before pressing his forehead to your shoulder and grinding against you with a confused whimper.

“I… I’ve got you,” you say, though you don’t know if you do. “I’ll take care of you, just let me…”

You put your hands on his shoulders and roll, flipping him over onto his back and sitting astride his hips. He complies uncomplainingly, flopping back against the cold ground without so much as a blink at the chill, limbs still trembling. You shimmy down his body and wrap a hand around his dick perfunctorily. He rocks up into your touch at once with a sigh of relief, the same sort of sound you’ve heard him make when you put a cool cloth on his forehead while he had a fever.

You can do this, you tell yourself. You stick your index and middle finger in your mouth and try to lave them up with saliva, coating them as thickly as you can. It’ll have to be enough.

Jake moans lowly when you tuck him into your mouth and suck him down without preamble. You need your other hand free to brace yourself over him, elbow beside his hip. Sucking in a deep breath through your nose, you press two wet fingers into yourself.

The stretch burns borderline unpleasantly, but you’ve tolerated worse pain in your life. You scissor your fingers, spreading your rim against the instinctive clench. It takes longer to work them in to two knuckles deep and try to focus on the blood-hot weight of Jake in your mouth, the niceness of the stretch to your jaw instead of the burn.

Jake’s hips keep hitching up into your mouth, fucking himself an inch in and out irregularly. He’s squirming under you rather than trembling, which you think is an improvement. You swallow the excess saliva in your mouth and he groans, louder than he’s been yet. His dick jerks on your tongue and the salt-bitter flavor of come fills your mouth.

Startled, you jerk back, letting the rest of it hit Jake’s stomach instead of the back of your throat. He slumps back down, going looser-limbed again, and makes another one of those pained whimpers.

He’s still as hard as he ever was, and his dick rubs over your cheek when he rocks up entreatingly.

You swallow the unexpected mouthful of come and cautiously take the tip back into your mouth, and he moans relief. Alright. Sure. That’s… not ideal, but sure. You can go awhile just fine.

And he did politely give you another source of emergency lube. Embarrassed, you reclaim your hand and scrape his come off of him and onto your still dampish fingers. Not the classiest thing you’ve ever done. Jake doesn’t seem to notice, so at least you and a hidden room of observers taking notes on your every action are the only ones who witnessed it.

You push his come into you with your fingers and go back to trying to stretch yourself while you roll take two of drooling on his dick. Jake jerks up into your mouth more frequently, and harder than he did before. He’s starting to make little whimpery moans, as if this isn’t quite enough. Fuck. Well, you hope fucking you is enough, before you aren’t sure what else might do it. He didn’t seem too interested in you fucking him, for one.

When the tremors start up in his legs again, you decide it’s just going to have to be good enough. You pull your fingers out and pull off of Jake to crawl back up his body. He opens his eyes, pupils still blown to all hell, as you reach back to position him against your hole.

You sink down on him, trying not to grimace at the stretch. He’s thick, but you can take it. You have to.

Jake reaches for you with one hand, fingers curling limply. You take it and twine your fingers together, rest your clasped hands on his belly for balance as you take as much of him as you can for the first go.

You start as slow as you dare, feeling how Jake’s pulse has slowed, conversely to how sex is supposed to go. He seems less uncoordinated after an orgasm, too, a little more alert and hitching up against you in more of a rhythm than just involuntary motion. You hope that he’ll maybe continue to get his coordination back, because you can only ride him for so long before your thighs will start to ache.

At least you’re semi-practiced at this. You can take deep breaths and work him deeper every time you sink back down until it’s mostly comfortable, the burn ignorable. You drop your chin to your chest and concentrate on keeping your rhythm smooth, coming close as you can to matching the rhythm he wants to go at.

The slapping sound of your bodies meeting fills the silence of the room, just that and your breathing and Jake’s contented noises. God, you hope he doesn’t feel like you took advantage of him, once he comes out of it. You refuse to entertain the thought that this might not end, that this nightmare might continue after you figure out what will satisfy the poison in his veins.

It would be too hard to keep yourself from breaking down if you let yourself fully form the thought.

Your thighs are starting to twinge from effort when Jake comes again, jerking up into you harder and moaning. You fall still and catch your breath for a moment, squeeze his fingers.

He doesn’t squeeze back. Instead, he sits up, startling you enough to fall back on your heels, driving him deep into you again. His eyes are hot with desire, still not the Jake you know. You try to touch his shoulder in question, but he grabs your arm, uses it to maneuver you off of him.

Jake pushes you down against the floor, flipped over on your chest with your ass in the air. You barely have enough time to suck in a breath and brace yourself before he’s in you again, driving in deep and _hard._

And you’re ashamed to admit it, but it feels good. Your body reacts to his touch and weight and warmth, especially his warmth. The floor is so cold that you can’t help but arch up against him, let him work himself as deep as he can go and fuck into you so hard that it forces the breath from your lungs, exhales punching out of you on every thrust. You brace your forehead on your arms and tilt up to meet him, get him at an angle that roughens your breaths in a different way.

You muffle the noises he forces out of you as best you can, humiliated to think that your observers might also be listening to you getting off on Jake fucking you in some kind of weird medicated sex haze. He keeps nailing you just right despite clearly not being capable of thinking much past his own need.

It’s a little tempting to jerk yourself off and just get it over with, but you’ll be oversensitive as hell afterwards. Better not to.

You shut your eyes and just sink into letting Jake pound away at you. God, it’s good, you have no right to enjoy this on any level and the guilt pools in your stomach alongside your pleasure. The pleased, satisfied noises Jake is making aren’t helping either. You’ve always enjoyed his enjoyment of you.

Jake grabs ahold of your hips with both hands and uses them to pull you back onto him with a smack as he fucks you. You moan despite yourself, and he echoes you, slamming into you one more time and then cock jerking inside you. Coming again.

You can feel how he doesn’t get a lick less hard and suck in a deep breath while you can. With two and a half loads in you, his way in is plenty slicked at least.

Just makes it feel even better as he slowly starts up again. Smooth, deep thrusts that nail you right on the prostate. You couldn’t keep yourself from arching your back and riding the waves of his thrusts if you tried. You’ve gone from semi-chub interest to rock hard arousal, and you wish you were on a bed so you could clench your fingers in the sheets.

And so you wouldn’t feel the dull ache of cold, hard concrete against your knees.

You know it’s inevitable, but when you come a few minutes later, your fingers go white from pressing against the ground in mute protest even as you gasp and shake, feeling the heat all the way up to your scalp. Jake keeps right on with hardly more than a groan at how you clench around him and you stifle a whimper. He hits your prostate again and your dick twitches feebly, a few more drops of come splattering the ground.

It’s no use. You grit your teeth and try to shift, to find an angle that won’t be jabbing you right where you’re most sensitive. Jake makes a sharp noise of rebuke and hauls you back by the hips, slams you right back onto him. You let out a strangled yell at the near-painful jolt of sensation. God, you’re going to fucking lose it.

You try to close your eyes and go to that quiet place in your head that you’ve found sometimes, where some of the incessant clamor of your brain dies down and you can drift along with more ease. It’s harder to find when you’re uncomfortable and still a little too cold and missing the private safety of your bedroom.

Jake is the one constant. His dick in you is familiar, his noises of pleasure, his harsh breathing and hands on you. You force yourself to concentrate on that, yank it to the forefront of your mind instead of the building burn of overstimulus, instead of how alien and harsh your environment is.

You love Jake. You trust him. If you cling to that, maybe it’ll be enough to get you through the rest of this.

You breathe through his next orgasm, several long minutes later. He pulls most of the way out to fuck back in while he’s still coming, and a trickle of come escapes to splatter ticklishly against your taint and balls. You squirm involuntarily at the hot, sticky drips, only to be fucked almost flat by Jake’s next thrust.

He rarely gives it to you this hard normally, if only because it takes a lot of effort to go this hard. You distantly think that he’ll likely be pretty sore after this, if there is an after this.

No. Not thinking that. You’ll get through this. You both will.

You focus on trying to time your breaths, keep them as even as he's letting you. Breathe out hard on each thrust in, suck in more air when he pulls back. It helps to have something to concentrate on. Helps to distract you from the returning burn, this time not from being stretched too quickly, but instead from being fucked too thoroughly well past the point of comfort.

It's bearable. You will bear it, you _have to_ bear it, for Jake's sake. You once promised him that you would do your best to be there when he needed you, and he needs you now.

He bends down over you, fits his mouth against the top of your spine and gasps against your skin. It pulls you out of the revery you'd managed, having his arms braced around you, feeling tucked in under his body. Ordinarily, you find this position comforting. Now it makes something in your chest ache, threatening to dislodge itself with every hard thrust, work its way up into your throat or up to make your eyes sting.

You're embarrassed to feel so affected, even if with Jake bracketed over you like this, there's little chance that much of you can be seen by your onlookers. But you wouldn't want Jake to remember you as an emotional wreck while he made use of you, if he does remember much of this afterward.

So, you tuck your face into the crook of an elbow, take as deep of breaths as you can, and if the the skin inside your elbow starts to get damp or salty, well, it's normal to sweat during sex.

All the while, Jake continues slamming into you with all his strength, groaning against your back and his dick occasionally jerking inside of you. Each press against your prostate sends more spikes of pleasure-pain shooting through you, but the smoothness of his thrusts, how deep he's able to take you like this, that still sends a curl of humiliated lust through you. The sweeter ache alongside the sting.

He pushes his weight against you more until the force of his thrusts is more than you can withstand and you slide down, legs shaking just enough for you to not be able to ignore from the strain. Jake follows you down with no fuss, presses you flat and continues to fuck himself into your ass.

This position at least takes some of the brunt off of your prostate, glancing it rather than slamming into it. It helps steady your breathing, which had begun to go rough in a way you couldn't control. God, you don't know how much more of this you can take.

As if in answer to your thoughts, Jake shoves into you one more time and then comes again, breaths harsh against your hair. He stays there as his cock pulses and fills you with another load, though he can't have that much more to pump out. You suck in a shaky breath while you have the chance, and in the brief stillness it sounds more like a whimper.

Then — then he pulls off of you, sits back and catches your leg. You don't have much choice, let him turn you over onto your back. It makes you aware of how much your knees and elbows sting, probably scraped raw against the concrete, and the overhead lights make you squint.

Jake crawls back over you and your legs fit around his hips automatically. But his pupils are much less blown, and he rubs a thumb under your left eye as he pushes back in, gentler than before.

"Shhh," he murmurs, and he almost sounds like himself. He rolls his hips into you, still demanding that you push yourself even further, but with more forgiveness for your used body.

"Jake…" Your voice cracks humiliatingly. You close your eyes again, but he bends to kiss each eyelid.

"Mmh, Dirk." His voice is still wrecked and woozy-sounding, but he recognizes you. He knows that it's you, not just an uncaring hole to bury himself inside of.

The tenderness almost undoes you. You blame your hitched breaths on his steady pace and wrap your arms around him so you can pull him down and not have to meet his eyes.

It feels like an age before he finally comes again and lets himself slip out. He grinds against your hip bone for a minute, softening slowly, and presses a kiss to your ear.

"Thank you," he says, and you choke on a sob. Unable to speak, you squeeze him tight and absorb the warmth of his body down to your bones until it eases the dull ache inside you.

A few hours later, you're given your clothes back by masked individuals wearing lab coats. They hand you both a voucher for 50% off One Movie Ticket and usher you to a car with darkly tinted windows. You cling to Jake's hand the whole way, trying not to limp, and he holds onto you just as tightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> matching couples tshirts:  
> i was fucked raw until first i came and then i cried and all i got was this lousy tshirt  
> i was dosed with aphrodisiacs and set loose on my man and all i got was this lousy tshirt
> 
> Arc: "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S A HALF OFF VOUCHER. IT'S NOT EVEN A FREE TICKET VOUCHER. I GET MORE FOR GIVING BLOOD. GOD."
> 
>  
> 
> full taglist: fuck or die, aphrodisiacs, unethical experimentation by evil bad scientists, abduction, overstimulation, being watched by strangers while you fuck even if youd rather not, rough sex


	6. 6 October - at least as deep as the pacific ocean (Sensory Deprivation)

You can't see, and that throws you for a while. As if you are sitting in a loading screen before awareness, you wait for reality to filter in.

Breathing makes sound, and you freeze when you recognize it, your whole body coming to awareness like a flicked switch. As if it'll help you see, you turn your head around, up and to the sides.

Nothing. Total and complete darkness. But there's a pressure around your head.

So there's something blocking your vision. The obvious tact would be to reach up and see what's happening.

Two problems quickly arise. First, your hands are locked together, which makes maneuvering difficult. When you pull, the binding is unyielding and refuses to budge.

Second, even if whatever's on your head is within reach, you can't feel it. Taking a moment, you try to figure out what's going on. There's something securely wrapped around your hands, making it hard to move your wrists and keeping your fingers still in place, like someone dipped your arms from the elbow down into firm latex.

Jesus, it had better not be latex.

Taking stock is much harder than it should be. The fact you can't see is messing with you. Breath keeps catching in your chest, as if you were winded instead of just sitting still.

That's right. You're sitting. Carefully, you unbend your legs from around yourself. Naked, your legs sweep across something textile that drags and pulls with you. Not carpet or cushion, so bed. A comforter, with the puffy pillow top, like hotels have.

Taking a steeling breath, you reach out your leg, looking for the edge. It's not in reach, so you lean down on your bound hands; they have to be encased in something pretty thick, because you feel the distance between your fingers and where you get pressure on the mattress.

Okay, so: push, and shift. Stretch out your leg again, testing. Your heel skips over the edge, and you're so startled you jerk back, bending your leg again.

There is no monster under the bed, Strider. Or, probably not. You are aware you are dreaming this time, that this is another of Jake's strange hope-powered nighttime fantasies, so you cannot say for absolutely certain that there are no monsters. Jake is resourceful and imaginative; a sexy monster under the bed is not completely out of the question.

Reaching your toes out, you find a hard floor beneath you. Bracing with your handmitts, you push off and land on the floor.

And your legs buckle, and you land on the floor with the slap of skin on wood. Fuck, you hope no one saw that.

"Well, not exactly the grace of a galloping gazelle," Jake says, voice dry and bemused.

"Shut up," you snap, feeling heat in your face. Of course he was watching, why would you expect any different. Jake was hardly going to set you up in some kind of weird bondage then _not_ get a load of it himself. You try to brace your hands on the floor, but its still hard to tell exactly where your point of balance is with them. "Are you going to help me up, or is watching me stagger around part of the kink?"

Footsteps. It's hard to pinpoint which direction they're coming from. You assumed losing vision would heighten your hearing, but there's corded tension in your neck as you swivel around, trying to locate Jake.

"Land's sakes, Dirk. You are a friggin' rapturous delight when you're all trussed up and happy, but before you get to that point, you can be such a sourpuss about it." Hands take tight hold of your upper arms, and you're lifted straight up off the floor, your legs fumbling to get under you.

Jake tugs you against his side, which helps you stand. "Where are we?" It's warm, like sunlight is shining in from somewhere, but it's not fucking balmy like the island tends to be.

"That doesn't concern you," he tells you, and it has that undercurrent to it, the low throaty thing he mastered pretty well by 20, let alone all the extra practice he's had since then.

You bow your head a little and exhale. "Fine."

"Don't sulk," he says, and starts to pull you away.

The part that's fucking with you is this isn't your house. If you were in familiar territory you could navigate fine, but here, Jake draw you away from the bed, the only point of reference you have, and your steps are unsure and uneven as you follow him. It makes something wind tight in your chest, and your breath comes out in pitched gasps.

Jake doesn't point out the state you’re in, just pulls you along with steady hands. Either he's being nice and letting you have your laconic freakout with an imagined measure of privacy or… this is part of the deal.

The latter is way more likely, and you rest your head on his shoulder. Then, you rub against him, trying to figure out what's on your face.

You get a finger pressing against your temple, pushing you off him. "No, Dirk."

"Okay," you agree quietly, and just focus on following.

The wood floors are nice; yours back home have knicks and dents from all the shit you've dropped on them or from robot fights or gadget testing. Some parts are warped from the weather. Here, everything is even and nice, even if the cool touch is creeping into your feet a bit more than you'd like.

Stepping from wood onto something softer makes you jump, nearly pulling loose from Jake as you come to a halt. Jake keeps a hand on your arm as he keeps walking, and you feel his reach stretching. If you don't hurry up, you'll get lost.

You nearly bump into him as you catch up, and hear him chuckle softly.  Your ears burn with embarrassment, but he's not mean about it, so you keep quiet and wait.

"Here. Sit."

"Floor?" you ask, for clarification.

"Yes."

Without hands, it's a trick to do. You check the area in front of you with a sweep of your foot. It's carpet there too, so you go forward and down on your knees. You have a lot of practice in this yourself.

"That's a lovely visage, but don't kneel," Jake tells you. "Sit."

Shifting, you sit back on your ass, letting your legs cross at the ankle in front of you, your bound hands resting in the space between.

"Comfortable?" Jake asks, then seems to reconsider. "Get comfortable." Now it's an order.

You check to be sure. "I am."

As reward, Jake places his hand on your head. It's not a pet or that nice thing with his nails. Instead, he just kneads your head, fingers pressing in and pulling together, spreading outward, and back again. It's strange, not something he's done before, but you can get into Jake touching your hair any way you get it.

You shut your eyes. Or, maybe they were already shut. With the blindfold, it's hard to tell.

Jake stops touching you. It happens so gradually, you nearly miss it. One moment, he's giving you a frankly amazing head massage, making your neck turn to jelly, chin lolling forward against your chest. It's nice and soothing and methodical, repetitive motion and pressure with the blunt tips of his fingers.

Then you're sitting there, breathing deep and steady and suddenly aware the tingles in your scalp are weird residual sensations, and Jake is gone.

Your heart beats faster; now that he's not touching you, you have no idea where he is. But lifting your head seems like a lot of effort, and you just try to clench your hands, feeling the resistance of the gloves.

The carpet quiets his footsteps, you realize. You are listening with all your might, trying to find him again. Where the hell is your super hearing that every piece of media you've ever consumed promised you?

Your breath is starting to come faster and heavier as you continue to fail feeling anything but… watched, alone, in the dark, sitting in sunlight, skin tingling. You bite your lip and rub your feet together.

There is zero warning before something closes over your ears, thick cups encompassing your entire ear, a circle of cushion against your head. It's soft, gentle, but firmly seated. Even the way you stiffen and move under the sudden change doesn't budge them at all.

You didn't feel him at all. Shit. Your mouth is open. Maybe you're… sighing? Panting? Something more humiliating, like whimpering? But you have no idea, you suddenly cannot hear anything, not even yourself.

It's silent. You're silent. Or, no, you're probably not, but the fact you can't hear it somehow makes you calm down. You can't hear your hitched gasps, so they don't exist.

You pull at your hands, not really trying to fight the bindings, just wanting the particular way your muscles pull across your shoulders. Your lips are still parted. There's no sound.

Until there is.

First thing you do is go still and turn your head to the left. Is that Jake? Did he walk past you and, you don't know, disturb the air? Something got your attention, and you feel like you're pressing against concrete, stretching out your senses to their limits.

But they're all capped. Controlled. You let your head face forward again and try to relax.

It comes again, slowly. Like rainfall on top of your head, a faint noise you can feel more than hear filters in, making your body tense all over. It's a patter with a noise filter, the tone so sharp it fragments into echoes, modulated down and flattened. You breathe and try to pick out what it is, if it is rain or something synthetic maybe. But as you start to pick up on it, it changes to a wispy noise, like sand falling in a pile or cloth moving, or…

You duck your head further, narrowing in on it. It's all you have right now, all you can think about. The moving sound that's dancing right outside your ability to quantify it.

It folds like origami, and it's… music? Or you think-- you were so focused on the sand noise, you're still hearing it as it changes to a lifting-falling-lifting drone and it's making it melodic? Or, shit, you don't know, and try to shake your head to dislodge what's in your head, trying to just hear _this_.

Weirdly, it comes to your attention the overwhelmed tense gut feeling in your body is fading out. The earphones are a distraction you can't help but dig into. It's almost vindictive; Jake knows how you are about phonics and the nuances of this kind of shit. You lick your lips, almost want to tell him what a devious deviant he's being, but…

Your mouth closes and you lean back, coming out of your tight forward curl. Immediately, your lower back thanks you, and you sigh out in relief. The darkness is humming and murmuring now, faint overlapping noises. It's hard to nail down what's being pumped into your ears, and what's just your brain being offered an inch of stimulation and turning it into a labyrinthine mile.

Under the sort of melodic monk-chant-through-water-also-with-slow-down that seems to be taking over every atom of your body is something, snuck into the droning sound. It's a steady pattern of absence, like a drum that keeps missing its cue. Over and over, a lack of beat.

It keeps looping, and you can fill the gap there. It's easy to imagine the dull beat there, completing the pattern.

Rolling your head, you take deep, steady breaths, slowing down and down until you can just thrum along, your heart hitting that note in the drone that's not quite a song. All you have to do is stay like this and keep this calm.

Listening for a while makes you feel content. Like you've done a good job. Putting yourself in tune is impressive work. You're an absolute marvel.

That thought makes you try to clench your hands again. That doesn't sound like you. Which is a little self-effacing, but it's true. You pay attention again, having to dislodge yourself from the settled placid feeling you were steeped in, wringing it out until you can think again in something that isn't a low hum or imagined drumbeat.

You squint into the darkness, trying to see if there's anything else in there. Are the reverbs from the layering drones turning into words? Are you losing your grip on reality?

Alright, you probably did a while ago since you became a drum or whatever for a bit there, but imagining praise doesn't sound like _you._ Even a you held in place by sensory deprivation and full body ASMR.

Everything is just dark vibrations as you try to decode what your world has become.

Then, a million feet over you, there is pressure. Sensation. It pushes, and you fall back, landing softly in more humming blackness. It's a thick lush phantom of the idea of tactile feeling. You fall like a stone into it.

Sometime later, you hit bottom, laid out and breathing slow and even. Back in the world of carpet floors and sunlight, a hand cups your jaw. You are perfect like shadowed glass. You're perfect.

You find your tongue, then find your lips. Lick them. _Is this you,_ you ask. No sound. Or, all sound, it's all just sound and darkness and two fingers and a thumb on your jaw. Nothing can get through the surface tension, nothing finds you down here.

Warmth solidifies across your lips. It takes precious time (seconds, minutes) to remember the right words. Wet and hot and Jake's tongue, in your mouth, sweeping in. Two points of contact, your jaw and your mouth as he kisses you long and leisurely. Two points, and you're strung tight between, like piano wire or a guitar string.

He takes your mouth for a while. It's fine. You're not using it and trust him to take care of it. And you. You're worth taking care of.

When he presses his palms over your shoulders, the shock of it is intense. Already you're full up of sensation, and the hot heavy weight of him on you knocks a gasp out of you, into the distant unknown space around you.

It's nothing next to his mouth lowering further. You decipher the wet glide of his tongue under your navel and the drone in your head is disintegrating. You're losing grip on it, it's your fault, and it starts to slip through your grasp, a sonic aegis lost as you drop it into the abyss.

Without it, you fit messily back into your body. Just in time for Jake to close his mouth around and make you writhe against the soft grain of the carpet, friction burning your skin. You're a person again, not a sound wave, and holy shit it's too much to bear. He swallows your prick immediately, and you shove up against him, your chest hurting as you gasp.

He lets you fuck into his mouth, uncaring. Every thread of restraint in your body is gone. You shudder and rock your body against the floor, soaking up physical awareness like a sponge.

When you remember you have hands again, you want to get your fingers into his hair, bruise his skin, hold him, just hold him. But you're trapped, stuck as he sucks you off harder, faster (stronger? ha) than he ever has before. It's arousal like a greenhouse fire, the glass rattling and heat building with haste.

The carpet is a blessing as you come, arching your body so hard up into him that your skull lands too hard back on the floor. It hurts, but under the drench of pleasure as your legs bend, toes curling; your heel manages to catch on Jake's back, and that alone helps, you just want to hold onto something, especially him.

When he eases off and finally lets you stop, your face feels damp under the blindfold. There's no sound at all, it's undiluted silence.

That's rough. You whimper and reach up your mittened hands to try and nudge the thing off.

Immediately, the pressure over your ears comes off. The headphones are gone. The sound that slams into your head makes you jerk like a physical slap.

"Dirk," Jake says, pulling you up to sitting by your arms.

"Loud," you moan, shaking your head.

Jake goes quieter, his voice forsaking words to just soothe you with hushed sounds. That's better, and you can tell he's right in front of you.

Leaning forward, you press your face against him.

Jake hushes you more, and pulls you in, until your legs spread across his lap. Your shoulder tucks under his arm nicely, and your head finds a familiar spot on his chest. Oh, that's so much better. You can feel him breathing. That helps.

One arm wraps around you, keeping you against him. His other cards into your hair, stroking slowly. You're fine here, relearning your body with his as a measure.

Jake's thumb tugs at the blindfold around your face. You shake your head. "No, not yet."

"Alright," he whispers. "Alright. You rest. Come back to me."

You huff a laugh, delirious and amused. "Already was. Gotta come back t'me."

"Ah," Jake says, like you're explained everything to him. He palms your head, keeps you lying against him, and you settle in, and sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Archie here. God, I liked this one a lot. Sometimes you go into something unsure how it'll work and wind up super enjoying it.
> 
>  **chapter content:** bondage, blindfolds, earphones, aural trance, sensation play, purposefully unclear elements in which it's hard to tell if Dirk is thinking something or if Jake is telling him something.
> 
> NEXT UP IS ME AGAIN AND I HAVE SOMETHING EXTRA WEIRD IN STORE FOR Y'ALL. brace urselfs.


	7. 7 October - the way we look to distant constellations (Xeno)

Your life aboard the _Phaedrus_ hasn't exactly been the greatest residency of your life. Life at university and the Academy both were preferable to this, even with their revolving door of shitty roommates and shittier hook-ups. At least back on Earth you were not fighting for your life against a malignant AI with a god complex and a logic break in its programming. At least Earth had steak and soft serve ice cream.

What the _Phaedrus_ had going for it was the view.

You sat alone on the observation deck, facing the enormous full-wall of window that separated you from the empty abyssal expanse of space.

Or, nearly empty. That was what you were out here for.

First it was hard to see. It took you time to figure out how to delineate the shape of it. It's all in the absence, which is difficult to figure out when you're looking at fucking space.

But sitting there, you begin to notice it. You know from the sensor suite that you're close to the anomaly. Keeping your eyes on the window, you see it in the places where the stars wink out and back in. Something as pitch black as the vacuum is moving between your field of vision and the distant dying lights beyond.

It's enormous, twice the size of the _Phaedrus_ , and moving. Detecting its precise shape from Earth had been difficult to say the least; it's hidden around the far side of Jupiter, somehow remaining in proximity without following the rotation of the planet. It's just _there._

Now, after months of travel, you are close enough to scan it. It's hard; nothing you throw at it wants to bounce back, as if everything you throw at it is just absorbed into it without a trace. If you wanted a good look at it, you'd need to go out and drape an enormous sheet behind it, then take some pictures.

That's not going to happen. Instead, you get up, your ass cold from sitting on the floor, and walk to the window.

As you stand there, another light comes in, and a few more stars go out. The thing is moving.

You're the last survivor of the _Phaedrus._ Your mission computer is dead, and even with all your know-how and expertise, you are not smart enough to figure out the slingshot maneuver that would bring you back to Earth.

But you're a Strider, and if you're gonna go out, it's gonna be in style.

You leave the observation deck, and head for the shuttle bay.

  
  


If anything, leaving the ship is a relief. The desolate silence has been starting to get to you. Being hundreds of millions of miles away from the next living human is a drag, to put it mildly, and an existential terror creeping up the column of your spine, to put it spicily.

You coast the golf-ball shuttle out of its holding dock, and into space. Jupiter's comforting tie dye orange-red-creamsicle glow is behind you. It would be nice if it cast some light on the anomaly you're headed towards, but the thing keeps swallowing all the light thrown at it. You even flash it with the high beams on this shuttle, which would put the most overcompensating Chevy truck to shape.

There is nothing. You sigh through your teeth and gently lean forward on the throttle.

The only indication of movement you have is the little row of monitors on your HUD. The distance between you and the _Phaedrus_ is increasing. Around you, all distance is darkness.

You keep a mental monitor of your own, on your predicted distance from the anomaly. As the throttle increases, propulsion ferrying you along this squid ink Styx to what's beyond, the numbers dwindle faster and faster.

Steady breaths, in through the nose, and out through your mouth. There is no point in turning back; the _Phaedrus_ is a coffin. Your shuttle pod probably is too, but it's one you have control over at least, even if it's an impotent control over the microcosmic question of When.

Sooner, not later, not from starvation and wasting away.

When your mental count puts you within a mile of this thing, you gun it harder, extending the pod it its limits, like trying to take a ramp with a four cylinder. You can imagine the wind in your hair.

However, when you get close, _real_ fucking close to the anomaly, you ease off, and let your inertia carry you in. You're not cautious enough to apply some fore thrusters and slow down, but this is potentially humanity's first encounter with something alien. Maybe ramming speed isn't the way to go.

Even with the instruments on the ship, you had no way of precisely pinpointing the location of the anomaly. You could get close. Sort of gesturing into space and going, 'eh, 'bout thataways for a few clicks, can't miss it.' Which was more than you had on Earth, so.

Still, your mental count goes to fifty, then ten, then _zero_ and you use the console to lean yourself back against your chair, bracing for impact.

There's none. There isn't one for a long, long fucking moment, when your count's just spiraling into the negatives. There is infinity out here, and you aren't that keen on meeting it.

When you stop looking at your monitors, you see that all the stars are gone. The glimmering corner of Io is gone. Space is black and endless around you.

Alternatively…

Steeling yourself, you turn on the aft camera. In a perfect world, you would see the distant shape of the _Phaedrus_ behind you, and Jupiter beyond.

You aren't in a perfect world. You're in fucking space. Behind you is absolute darkness. Whatever the anomaly is, you are fuckdeep in it now. Jonah and the weird shifting geometric space whale. And how did that story go? You slept through Sunday school.

Coasting deeper and deeper into the assumed epicenter of this presumed thing, you feel your tension eek away. Nothing is happening.

Nothing is happening.

Then _nothing_ happens.

Your HUD goes haywire, suddenly reading you as ten miles from the ship, then thirty, then a flatline of readings as you presumably break out of transmission range in the space of five seconds. The atmospheric monitor reads oxygen-rich oceanic air, then volcanic sulfur ash, then the vacuum again, then 'SEPTIMO ESSENTIA.' Which wasn't covered at the Academy, honestly.

You don't have much time to linger on the HUD elements losing their cybertronic minds, because the pod begins to vanish. The hull goes black, disappearing into the space around you. Then the insulation layer under it. You scramble to hit the pressure seal on your suit, sealing you inside with your bubble dome helmet just as the ultra thick theoretically impenetrable glass fucking turns to nothing as well. The floor under you, the curved ceiling over you, the lights that guide you, everything goes out as you tuck your legs up to your chest and try to keep clear, it's all _nothing._

You, on the other hand, don't get swallowed or unmade by the anomaly. You sit there, fetal and plenty fucking freaked out, and float without mooring in the space.

Maybe going out with a bang wasn't your best idea. Maybe you should have given some fair dues to eating all the remaining rations, meditating on the nature of your existence while looking at Jupiter, then ending things in some poetic but humane way. At least then you'd know what was coming.

Now, you heave breaths of canned air as you hang out in the heart of darkness itself, and wait.

Wait. Wait.

Waiting is boring, you uncurl your body and extend your foot out from your body. It passes the point where the floor of the pod once was without interruption. And it doesn't turn into nothing, so that's good. That's excellent.

You are too much of a grown-ass man to stay like that, so you come out of your terrified tuck and let yourself hang out in the nothing.

Just when you are acclimating to this and everything is approaching a fineness threshold your hindbrain is equipped to deal with, your boots turn to nothing. Your gloves turn to nothing. The spherical glass bubble around your head turns to nothing, and you yell in shock and renewed terror.

The anomaly vanishes your excursion suit, leaving just the skintight padded layer underneath, stark grey with orange stripes around your shoulders and hips, down your legs. You are a gaudy trinket floating in the nothing, gasping.

Which, oddly: not suffocating. That's… news. Good or bad, you have no idea. This whole excursion was a bad idea at this point.

There is not much you can do. You cross your arms over your chest, even though it’s not cold. It's not anything. It's comforting, though.

Whatever is around you is taking its time moving onto the final soft vulnerable human course of the meal.

You sigh, and try not to think if it's gonna hurt. Given the there-then-gone nature of it, probably not. Small mercies.

Time is nothing here either. Seconds go by. Minutes go by. Hours might too. You have no way to check, with your bubble helm and it's useful atomic clock gone.

The dissonance between the unforeseeable unknowns of the future of your small existence and the boredom is intense. You have nothing to do, so you cross your legs, as if you were really going to meditate, and tap your fingers on your knees.

Viewing the anomaly has been difficult. You need to examine it in the space it takes up between the viewer and a known visible landmark.

Your legs are a landmark. You see now the nothingness that moves between your eyes and them. Finally, you see shape.

It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's layers and folding and diaphanous, sheets suspended between two absolute lines. They cross with each other, jagged, but moving fluidly from one jagged shape to the next. They are geometry by someone fucking around in Blender, making impossible things that ripple and move.

It's a stream of hard angles and flat planes that seems to eat through the space between you, until it comes close to your face.

You try to rear back, pushing off. There's no way to brace yourself, and you come to the end of your reach too soon. The anomaly stretches into your face.

Unsteady breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

The _thing_ moves into you like air. From what you can tell, you should be inhaling razor blades. It should destroy your delicate form, slice you apart on fracture-thin points and wreck you internally.

It spills out of your mouth, a plume rendered in low-poly to flow out into the space around you. As you exhale it, you can see a shift. The black is colored differently, like you can pick out the minute differences in the color code. Now, it's just slightly green. It spills like a waterfall from your mouth and pools in your lap as more flows in with every inhale, until the pond overfloods and drips over your bent legs, around your ankles, over your hips.

All of this passes over you without sensation, and you think maybe you just can't grasp the true form of the feeling, much like how the shape doesn't makes sense, even as you anxiously watch it come into your nose, presumably into your lungs, and back out. Is it oxygenating you? Are there strange glitchcraft abyssal things in your body now? God, don't think about that.

But sensation starts slowly, as if your brain has needed all this time to translate what you feel to your peasized human comprehension. Pieces of information come in. You are full of something that is vibrating and lively, thought maybe not _alive?_ You have no idea. But it's in you, like something more sparse than air, but connected, following, liquid. Squid ink, again, if squid ink was made from light particles instead of whatever the fuck squids use to make ink.

You can feel the way each disparate piece of the anomaly pulls and drags at itself, remaining connected to the larger whole, even as it drips over the bowl of your legs, running along the seams of your suit, following the lines and tracing them, overlaying your form. Now, with the very, very slight shift from nothing-blackness to almost-black-green, it's a little less scary. You can see your body underneath as it starts to coat you.

There's nothing to lose here; you're already lost, somehow. So you run your hand through the strange torrent running from your lips.

It fills your cupped hand, looking like the wireframe of the universe. Then, it flows backwards, up your wrist and along your arm, rising. And why wouldn't it; gravity isn't a factor out here.

The tide rises over you, showing you glimpses of your skin and your suit through it as it moves, unraveling itself across your body. It reaches your shoulder and falls down your back, out of your sight. You pant, sure you can feel it as the sensation becomes more acute and understandable. It rolls down your back, following your spine, and you arch, confused by it. There's no heat, no cold.

There's no _air._ Humans always have air. Shitty polluted city air or allergy-dense country air or the processed filtered air they pump into your space habitats. But now, it's gone, and the absence is so weird you reach over to try and push the anomaly off your arm and shoulder.

Of course, it just catches. You pull your hand back, and it stretches in strange flat planes and rotating angles as you accidentally pull it over your sternum. It spins and moves, until one random 35 degree angle of green-black taps your clavicle and seems to latch on there to, bringing everything down over you like a shroud.

After that, it's fast. You can't keep track. Your body started to shake from the epiphany of what absolute nothingness feels like as it spreads over you like a blanket. The pool in your lap is full and the waterfall reverses, spreading along your navel and up your chest. At the same moment, the cascade down your back sweeps under you, cupping your ass and over/under your legs until it spills back into the pool from the other side. And it all inverts, and you breathe out plumes that rise over you, meshing with the flow into your nose and passing through without cross contamination. It drenches your cheeks and rolls down your chin and into your hair, the sensation ticklish and foreign.

You twitch and clap a hand over your hair to rub away the tickle. All the anomaly you're holding spills, and you slam your eyes shut as it coats you in black-green.

Breathing picking up, you imagine you're a goddamn geyser of the stuff, making a mess as it spills out of your lips. You lick them, and try closing your mouth for a moment, just to see what it might feel like.

You can't see anything; it's blocked your eyes. But you can feel the watery drips that work out from the corners of your mouth. You exhale through your nose, and feel the whole thing around you inch tighter.

You've been dropped in cosmic glitchwave amber, and you can feel it start to very slowly press in on your body. The sharp angles and flat planes that should not fit against you, that should kill you swiftly, they just close subtly more and more around you, and you let out an honest to god keen at the sensation.

Nothingness continues to insinuate itself into you. Now that you are aware of how completely and totally Other it is to every other moment of your existence and your wider species history, you can't stop feeling it. It's a saturation, closed around your body but also imbuing itself into you.

Twitching, you start to curl up again, and are shocked that the anomaly doesn't stop you.  But when you try to hug yourself, you can't feel your skin anymore, so you must still be encased in it. Okay. That's a little harrowing. At the same time, you can feel the individual threads of the thing pulling with your movement, following the threads of your body. It goes flat against you, but remains layered and pointed and angular.

Breathing slowly, you think your body is moving with the thing? It doesn't hurt, but your skin is lighting up like a pop rocks in a soda can, pinging around and taking you along with it. You can feel your skin laying flush against it, and that means…. you rattle the thought around in your head. If you feel it flat and smooth against you, then either it's stopped fidgeting around in its glitchy bullshit, or the more likely situation: you're being moved with it.

You reach up and close your hand around your throat, as if you might feel the horrific transformations it's putting your body through.

Nothing. Or, nothing you can tell. Maybe your body is morphing too much. Maybe you're going full fucking non-Euclidean, and not just spherical but all the way to the goddamn Tesseract. The curve of your tongue is already being unmade and reworked into something else. The pinpoints of Green Nothing strewn through your body are the wiring rig of your corporeal form, and they are all fine and connected, but the spaces are moving. Angles are moving. You're moving.

You open your eyes, and see multitudes.

At first, everything is out of focus, images sliding into each other in ways that don't make sense. Then, that keeps happening, Gossamer strands connect to make a web of the cosmo, tethering the distant points and keeping everything from flying apart like a box of knives exploding. Everything lines up and holds fast.

And the color comes in. Between every line is another shade of green, and where each one overlaps the color deepens, and deepens, going so thick it should become opaque. But the color just changes. Green, then a different green. Nuance unravels until it's the foundation of everything around you, just the complexity of a single hue opening into the full spectrum.

You sip it in quickening gasps, confused but not as much as you have been.

The cells of color line up, and the green becomes so bright it-- it hurts, and you shut your eyes again.

Now, you feel it, like a cat's cradle being rearranged. The nexus points of your body are moving, and you shake like strings plucked as the anomaly rearranges you. You should snap to pieces. Instead it's just a hum of chords and cords working in tandem, shivering and angling. An instrument being brought into tune. You open your mouth and fucking sing with a desperate noise, unsure if you want the thing to stop or to happen more. There's no pain, just change and transcience and transcendence.

For curiosity, you try to move, and find you can, and the anomaly moves _with_ you, pinwheel spokes turning and spiraling in a kaleidoscope. You unravel your body-- no. Wrong term. You lay out, coming out of your fold to point your toes and let your arms hang loose, and when you dare to check again, you can find the tangle of polygons and spiderweb that makes your body with blocks of orange color, layer over the green (or maybe under, you can't tell yet).

Waving your fingers, you can see the vague shape of them respond. Well, shit, at least you still have fingers. Hallelujah.

It's getting you happy in a serious way, something like pure light building up in you as you get on board with whatever fuckery is going on. The anomaly twists and breaks the logic of you, keeping the pieces together and refitting them. Everything slides in perfectly, and you feel levels of self that defy recognition.

Apart, then together, each perfect slot into place making the universe come into scope. Green, green, that other green, and all the layers of stained glass that makes up this creature.

Color is light. Oh shit, are you light now? Is this _thing_ light? Particles and waves and strings, right, you think deliriously as green starts to cautiously, almost reverently intersect with orange, and you gasp at the new clarity of two lens coming into perfect focus.

It starts in the sinew and sunset-bleed colors that were your feet. (Are your feet? Could you stand right now?) Green crosses into you, and a wire thread catches against yours, then jumps through until you’re occupying the same space.

You feel elation and curiosity and something other than yourself. It's really a lot for just your feet to handle, just epistemologically speaking, and the overload of emotion makes you kick your legs and gasp, shutting your eyes again.

The green slides out of you quickly, coming up against your angles again and then almost popping out of place. You are yourself again.

That sucks. You lick your lips, and wonder why the hell you still _feel_ your lips. Shouldn't they be all waves and bent planes? Whatever. You reach out and try to touch the green around you.

Two fingers manage it, and you knock into the space the anomaly is in, and feel the pop come with surprise and delight and green, green, green, green means go on Earth and you hope in space.

You don't see the next one coming. There is pressure against your spine, which feels like some tight braid of cords and ribbons. It bends with the pressure, and you nearly shout at the tension that thrums through you.

It hesitates, then just pushes and intersects, bright and blinding and exuberant, taking on all of your emotions in turn. It's equivalent exchange, and a kind of intimacy you can barely comprehend. The thing is occupying the same space as you, and you feel all the things it does, and it feels you too.

The lines between you bend and crook, and it comes into you again, across your shoulder. You twitch and moan, a citrine butterfly pinned with green pins, each puncture harmless and flooding you with sensations that barely fit in your head. It's becoming a lot, too much. A stutter of fear and resignation fills you as you realize you're probably not going to survive this.

The anomaly fills you with reassurance and almost a scramble of action.  

You unfold and open, becoming something bigger and wider. There is more space in you, and you're… empty. It's an emptiness you've never felt before, the boundaries of your self exceeding what you are.

The anomaly pushes and intersects with you more, bringing your bodies together, and their self fills the gaps in you, cozy and warm and green. You are strung there and forced to endure the change from being empty to being complete, and you scream at the intimacy of it.

The power of it doesn't give out. You can't stop the deluge of elation and heat as it moves with you and becomes part of your new form. This is just life, existence, to be burning with an arousal of senses that burn even brighter at new stimulus. You are orange and vivid and yet still can point your toes and feel the way your suit pulls with your skin. It's absurd. Everything you are is absurd.

The anomaly is amused at this, and is pretty sure you are the absurd one, thank you very much, so singular and small but encapsulating something so much bigger. How did all that fit in there? Now you should have more room for yourself and others, isn't that a relief?

The idea of all of your thoughts and desires and fears and bullshit being foisted on someone else is kind of your worst nightmare. But that's buried under the now continuous glowing euphoria you are… that you are.  You think that's how they can communicate with you.

It's all the same language now.

Say hello.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahem. Archie here. Hi.
> 
>  **chapter content:** xeno of the Unknowable Extradimensional Space God kind, very esoteric sexual content, potential body horror, transformation, alteration of cosmic perspective, telepathy, and to be honest the author is not even sure if this counts as porn
> 
> Look. I have written a LOT OF XENO. I just..... wanted...... to do something different?????
> 
> ?????????????????? i think i managed that????


	8. 8 October - three points where two lines meet (Selfcest, Exhibitionism)

You are standing in front of a door. It's a perfectly ordinary door, unremarkable plain wood and brass doorknob. There's a long moment where you have no idea where you are or why you're here before you piece together the fabric of what you know. 

You're asleep. This is another one of Jake's dreamscape playgrounds. 

The man himself is nowhere in sight. To either side of you is just a long hallway, plain and unadorned walls, the ends blurry and undescribed in a way that bluntly spells out that you're not meant to venture down in either direction. 

For a moment, you contemplate being contrary and setting out to the left or right, but. Well. Jake's on the other side of this door, and you haven't yet been displeased with whatever harebrained dreams he's cooked up for the two of you. 

You try the knob. It's unlocked. 

The room inside is brightly lit from large windows spanning every wall besides the one now behind you. There are tall, gauzy curtains that barely qualify as drapes hanging over each window, and the light that shines through them is golden and warm. The floor beneath your bare feet is warm as well, made of a darker but still golden wood. 

Huh. You're already naked. It's warm enough that you feel comfortable. Besides, Jake's naked, too. 

You draw up short still a few paces away from him and his knife's grin. He is sprawled out in a big, glossy chair, looking very comfortable and self-satisfied and interested in your nudity. His eyes drag over you, and his smile widens. 

You raise an eyebrow at him. "So. What's the game tonight?" 

He pouts. "Never one to let things just run their course, are you. How would you put it? Strider, kindly stop busting down my poor fourth wall until we've got only tiny bits and pieces left, thanks very much." 

You gesture at the wall behind you. "It looks pretty damn intact to me. I repeat: what's the plan, Stan? Is this some kind of power play thing? You on your fancy throne, reenacting the Emperor's new clothes. Am I supposed to bow? Should I crawl over there and ask nicely if I can please suck you off?" 

You earn yourself a big eyeroll for your snark, which is fair.  

Jake crooks a finger at you to come closer, seemingly given up on deterring you from running your mouth. With well-trained obedience, you follow his beckon and step forward until you are almost toe-to-toe. He turns his hand around, palm out, to signal you to stop. 

You do, and wait. 

He smiles crookedly at you. "There. Not so hard, was it?" 

Several potential responses come to mind, but you restrain yourself with effort. 

His smile broadens when you stay quiet. He reaches out towards your stomach, and your breathing unintentionally deepens as you brace yourself for his touch. 

It doesn't come. Jake pauses, frowns, hand still suspended in the air. "Just a darn second," he says. "This… this one isn't mine, is it?" 

You don't get a chance to ask what the hell he means by that. Two arms encircle you from behind and pull you out of arm's reach from Jake. You try to struggle free, but your captor seems to anticipate this. They move with you to keep you pinned to their chest. 

Jake, meanwhile, is cursing up a storm. When you stop trying to fight your way free, you see that he's been lashed down to the chair, ankles bound to the feet, his chest tied to the back, and his arms to the arms. He's still grinning like a maniac, though. Dimples ahoy and everything. 

"You devil!" he says. "You just couldn't wait any longer to make your grand entrance, could you? Had to drat all my plans straight to the garbage can." 

"Well," your captor drawls in a horribly familiar sarcastic tone. "You've been keeping this treat all to yourself. Can't blame a guy for wanting a nibble." 

They pinch your side. You yelp in surprise and manage to dig an elbow into their stomach and turn just enough to see their face. 

Christ on a fucking hot dog. Your mirror image grins at you, radiating an aura of wicked mischief that you greatly prefer to see on Jake's face. 

"What the fuck," you say flatly. 

"'Sup," says the asshole wearing your body. With surprising strength, he turns you back around and pins you to his chest again.

Jake still looks… completely unsurprised by the appearance of your double. You summon up every cubic inch of scathing disapproval in your body and direct it at him with a glare. 

His smile doesn't wobble even a bit. "I suppose a round of introductions are in order! Dirk, it's my great pleasure to finally be able to introduce you to my best genuine duplication of my one and only best buddy." 

"He calls me Brain Ghost Dirk," he says into your ear, tone dry as dust, fingers curling over your hip bone. "Bit of a weird name, but Jake's a weird guy. You already knew that." 

You have to close your eyes and count to ten. You know exactly what the hopeful, interested expression on Jake's face means. 

"You're Jake's heartsplinter," you say aloud, once you've mastered the urge to break the scene into tiny static pieces and have normal dreams that don't involve any clones whatsoever. 

"I'm _your_ heartsplinter," he corrects. "Jake might have brought me to life, but it was you who handed off your heart in the first place."

Jesus. You feel your entire face go hot and you renew your attempts to struggle out of his grasp. Jake looks completely delighted by all of these turns of events. Traitor. 

You appeal to him, despite knowing he's unlikely to fold. "I'm not going to make out with your weird brain clone of me just so you can get off, okay? Can we just do something that's a normal level of weird, that would be great. Please." 

"Rude," says the ghost into your ear. He doesn't sound offended, and his lips ghost your skin. It's severely distracting and irritating. You're a lot of things, but you're not turned on by the idea of fucking yourself. 

"But you look so nice together!" Jake says, clearly delighted. "Like a tableau of all your lovely skin tangled together and freckles lapping from one of you to the next. If you had my view, Dirk, you would only be pitching tents, not fits." 

You splutter. The ghost laughs, his lips curling against your ear. You try not to twitch. 

"I dunno," he says, still close enough that his words resonate in your ear. "Looks to me like at least one of us is starting to put up a pole." 

He's not wrong. Jake has clearly begun to enjoy himself more, maybe because you keep squirming back against your counterpart in effort to extricate yourself. The ghost is also decidedly not as flaccid as he damn well should be. Bastards. 

Jake makes pleading eyes at you that are clearly just intended to try and make you agree to this absurdity. "How can you have no idea what a sight you are like this? Both of you wrapped up against each other and in your birthday suits, it would take a man of unbelievably terrible taste not to find you irresistible. And he's left me in just the perfect position to watch your face when he fucks you." 

"No," you say quickly. "No way. I am not getting my own dick in my ass." 

Jake's stupid brain ghost starts petting your stomach in a way that is way too suggestive for you to try and ignore. "Both of you are making an awful lot of assumptions about how this is going to go," he observes. "And about who's in charge, here. If you recall, Jake: this dream is _mine."_

If anything, Jake just grins more broadly and settles back against his chair as if the restraints are no more than a mild inconvenience. "By all means, be my guest," he says. "He's all yours." 

You open your mouth to — protest, complain, pitch another goddamn fit, but Brain Ghost Dirk beats you to it. His head ducks down and his mouth closes against your neck. He bites down and the words you had been intending to say dissolve into a shocked moan. 

"See?" he says against your skin a moment later, once he's released you. "I've got plenty of plans in store for you, Dirk." 

You're pretty sure he's grinning back at Jake from over your shoulder, which is extremely annoying, but the hand that was still petting your stomach slides down and cups your dick gently. 

Your next inhale is a sharp, startled gasp, and you try to yank away from him again, but he just bites down again, this time against your shoulder, and his grip on your dick tightens enough to be a clear warning. You go as limp as you can make yourself, though you still want to fight and pull away and — fuck, you don't know, not wake up, just, something less overwhelming than this, something that doesn't make you want to cover your face and not look Jake in the eye for a month. 

Then he starts to stroke you, still very gentle and careful, coaxing your dick to join the tent party he's so determined to throw. It takes a minute, your dick at least half as reluctant as you still feel, but it still feels good. 

Damn it. It does feel good, and you screw your eyes shut as you start to plump up in his hand. 

Jake makes a delighted noise, and you crack open an eye despite yourself. He's fucking beaming at you, eyes centered on his ghost's grip on you, how your dick is starting to get hard enough to pink up and peak out of his fist as he slowly drags it up and down your length. 

You close your eyes again. Fuck, he's barely started and you can't — can't think, can't fucking take this, it's ridiculous and humiliating and Jake is looking at you like he's won the damn lottery, you know he is. Even with your eyes shut you can feel him looking at you. 

Brain Ghost Dirk — he's right, that's an awful name. He rubs his lips up the side of your neck and you tilt your head to the side without thinking, giving him better access, too used to Jake doing that same move to you to keep your head. "I told you," he says quietly. "My dream, and I've been looking forward to getting my hands on you for a long time. Or, Jake has. Years and years, over a decade now, isn't it." 

He doesn't phrase it as a question, and you don't give him the satisfaction of an answer, not even in the form of a moan. It's none of anyone's business. Nobody needs to know that — that — fuck. Over a decade. That's — close to when you first wanted him so badly that you felt it like a living thing inside of you that you thought might tear its way out of your body in its desperation for him to give you any hint that he would ever touch you with more than distant, friendly affection. 

It's getting to you. Despite yourself, your hips twitch into his grip, and you're hard. You sneak a careful peek from under your lashes and — yeah. Jake's looking. 

He's looking at you like he's won every prize at every carnival, like you're a feast and his eyes have been starved for sustenance for so long that they're on death's doorstep. It's too much. You squeeze your eyes shut and work on pretending you didn't hear the pathetic whimper that snuck out of you. 

"Need more?" Brain Ghost Dirk asks casually. "I've got more for you. Well, it's not really much of a question of you needing more, huh. You always need more." 

"Fuck you," you say with as much vehemence as you can muster. 

He just grins against your neck. "Yeah, thought so. Know so, really. I can feel it burning in you. You wish it was him, right? Jake touching you, Jake running his hands over you, Jake's fingers in you and Jake's dick stuffing you full enough to satiate the need you've been carrying around like a bottomless bag for as long as you knew what wanting was." 

You fight him again. You can't help it. He's stripping you raw with just a few casual words. You don't want Jake to know that. You never intended to tell him how badly you wanted him, even back when you were a nine year old kid who barely had a concept of bodies, just knew that you wanted to be special to Jake, more special than anyone else in his life. 

So, you resist. You squirm and try to get an arm free from where he still has it pinned against your side. If you can get it free then you can get him to let go of your fucking dick because he's squeezing it again, and then you could try to stomp on his foot, get an elbow in his stomach or get enough space between your bodies that you could twist and shove him away and — Christ, probably just run for it, get to the door again and sprint down one of the vaguely undefined hallways, put some distance between you and the both of them. 

But he's holding you tight, too tight to do anything to get away, and his voice is urgent in your ear. "Hey, hey, easy there, cowboy. He likes it. Open your eyes, Dirk, come on." 

You won't. You will not be doing that. Absolutely not. You can't think of anything worse than knowing what expression Jake is wearing right now. 

"Open your eyes," the ghost says, "and then I'm going to fingerfuck you until you come hard enough to hit Jake's legs. Bet he'll like that." 

"You'd better darn right believe I would," Jake says, and it shocks you like a punch to the gut, no air left in your lungs. You make some terrible, helpless whimper, too breathless to be anything but desperate. 

"Told you so," the ghost says, and you hate him so much that you think after this you're going to claw him right back out of Jake's head. You've never considered if you could reabsorb a splinter before but this strikes you very much as the time to give it a shot and see if it's possible. 

"Dirk," Jake calls. "Dirk, darling, buttercup, look at me. Come on, I know you've got it in you. Show me those lovely peepers of yours. I want to see how they shine for me." 

It's harder to resist Jake. He sounds much like he always does, doting and affectionate and cheerfully willing to bulldoze over you and leave you lying flat on your face like an emotionally wrecked crêpe. 

You sneak a tiny look at him through slitted eyes, but he notices. Of course he notices. He coos at you like you're a frightened kitten he wants to lure out from a cupboard. 

"Dirk, my lovely, there you are." He wiggles his trapped fingers at you like he's pulling you in to sit on his lap. If only. "Let me see those citrines shine, there's a boy." 

You tremble in the ghost's arms and reluctantly peel your eyes open. You can't refuse him, not when he asks you like that. He smiles when you look at him and you're caught, trapped like a butterfly he pinned to a board with just the affection in his eyes. 

"You're doing so well," he croons to you. "My bonny boy, my docile sweetheart. You'll do this for me, won't you? You'll let him run his bow across your strings, wind you up and make you sing a pretty song for me. I know you will. And you're going to keep your eyes on me the whole time." 

You want to look away so badly that you're shaking, but you're still pinned through with electric green and the intensity on his face when he drags his gaze down your body. The ghost still has your dick cupped in his hand, traitorously not going limp like it fucking should have. But you aren't fighting him anymore, and you don't seize your chance to escape when he releases your arms. 

His fingers instead trail down between you, growing slick as they go, leaving a faint cold trail across your hip. You can't stop trembling, and it's so embarrassing you could die, but you can't look away from Jake, even when Brain Ghost Dirk presses two fingers into you with no preamble and you cry out. 

Your whole body arches and you clamp down on his fingers, but he fights back against the clench to work them in further. It's a challenge to bite down a moan, and your breathing roughens, faint noises escaping you despite yourself. 

Jake can hear every one of them, and he leans forward as best he can against the restraint around his chest. "Make him moan, Brain Ghost Dirk," he orders. "I want to watch his face when you make him scream." 

"Bossy," says the ghost, but he shoves his fingers into you so hard that you rise up onto your toes to try and escape it, muscles going tense, a whine trying to escape your throat through clenched teeth. 

"Harder," Jake says. "He can take it, go on." 

"Fuck," you hiss, and the ghost punctuates it with another shove into you. His fingers grow slicker, a siege weapon against your resistance. He knocks your legs apart a half-step with his foot, making you spread, and leans forward against your back so you're forced to press back against his hand. 

They both play so dirty. The ghost must get it from Jake, you think wildly, as he fucks his fingers into you with brisk swiftness, deeper and deeper until his other knuckles are pressed flat against your ass. He crooks them and drags them down until he hits your prostate dead on. 

You cry out sharply and your toes curl against the floor. 

Jake beams and you almost, _almost_ look away, but remember at the last second. You're trapped watching Jake watch you, watch the way his hips try to jerk when you moan, watch him bite his lip and stare at you like he wants to eat you alive. 

Brain Ghost Dirk squeezes your dick roughly, palm barely damp with sweat, stripping you with each stroke and fucking you forward with his fingers into his grip. You're still shaking, legs threatening to give out, teeth gritted and something stinging in your eyes. You're so slick inside from his fingers that you can feel it dripping out of you, filthy hot and terrible, and the ghost laughs like he can hear your thoughts and drives his fingers into you, and. 

And you arch against him with a strangled scream and come, Jake's eyes fixed on you like he's having a religious experience, Brain Ghost Dirk holding you upright and still speared on his fingers. You whimper when he strokes you past the point of orgasm, merciless, dragging one last dribble of come out of you before he hauls you back upright against him. 

The restraints around one of Jake's wrists vanish and he wastes no time in slumping back against the chair and wrapping his hand around himself with a groan. You sway, unsteady, only able to keep your feet because of the ghost. Jake is still looking at you, eyes dragging up and down your body, and you think it's high time you got to close your eyes again. 

You aren't given the chance. Brain Ghost Dirk fists his hand in your hair and drags it back so he can — so he can fit your mouths together and kiss you. 

For a few moments you resist, more embarrassed by this than you even were by having him jerk you off. Jake groans loudly at the sight, though, and the ghost is kissing you almost gently, sucking your bottom lip into his mouth until you whimper. He chases the sound, slips his tongue in to lick at your mouth and, fuck, you somehow missed it before, but his dick is pressing firm against your ass. 

"No," you moan against his mouth, but he swallows the sound down. 

"Yes, gosh fucking damn, Dirk," Jake babbles. You can hear the sound of him jerking off, how his breathing speeds up. "Kiss him again, frig, do you have any idea how fucking good you look together?"

"Indulge him, Dirk, come on," the ghost mutters against your mouth, grinding against your ass. He sucks on your bottom lip again and then traces it with his tongue. "You've been doing such a good job giving him a show so far. Shame to give up before the grand finale." 

You want to look away. You want to shut your eyes, especially this close to him, especially having to see your own eyes looking at you greedily, your own cheeks flushed with arousal. But you can't. It's like he has you ensnared, the way Jake can do to you sometimes, like a spell cast over you that forces you to look and look until he decides to release you. 

Brain Ghost Dirk grinds against you steadily and makes a low noise in his throat, breaking away from his kisses to rest your foreheads together. It almost hurts to look at him, like staring into a bright light, how it makes your eyes water until you want to look away. 

Kind of similar to riding the edge of good-hurt and bad-hurt, how you want more and less in the same breath, really. Like getting fucked past the point of pain, only you don't want to think of it that way, because it's humiliating to think of anything to do with him as being similar to something you find arousing. Your eyes sting so badly that you can feel tears forming in the corners. 

Which. Might have something to do with the way he's glowing. 

You know the color of the light as well as if it were your own color. It's Jake's. It's the color of Hope. 

Brain Ghost Dirk has gone glowing white at the edges, his body lit up with Jake's power. It spills from his mouth when he breathes out, a bright wispy cloud that curls around your face and neck. 

You try to jerk your eyes over to Jake, to see if he's doing this, to see if he _means_ to be doing this, but you can't see him. The ghost is still holding your face towards him. 

He's still grinding on you, too, short stuttered thrusts against your ass, uneven, and you're finally spared from having to look into your own dilated pupils when he squeezes them shut and comes with a near-silent groan. His dick jerks and skips over your skin, a hot splash of come splattering your ass. 

The cloud of light pours from his mouth and skin, enveloping the both of you, so bright that it sears into your brain even when you try to blink. It's such a bright light that it leaves afterimages dancing over your vision even as you gaze into it, green against blinding white, white overshadowed by blinding green. 

You look deeper into it, into the light and into the boy still holding you against him, and inside the white is green, vivid, brilliant green, written to the very core of the living specter of you and Jake. Every piece in the depths of him that was once you is green, overwritten with it and matching it word for word at once, tangled together too close to ever be peeled apart again, and you fall into the light of hope and the blinding green, sink deeper and deeper and deeper and… 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags: selfcest, exhibitionism, threesome, brain ghost handjobs, emotional intensity?, mild mild bondage


	9. 9 October: soft reset (Service Submission)

It's raining today. There's a midday storm coming in towards the island, the first bands of it beginning to roll across the beach and up to the house. The sound of rain against the curved metal slope of the roof is almost a hum across your senses. You can taste the way the air is different, damp but not the usual humidity that you're so accustomed to on the island.

You're waiting, sitting in the living room. You're resting on the floor, your legs bent in front of you, your back against the armchair.  The air is chilled; the sun hasn't managed to come out yet today, so you press one foot on top of the other, trying to cover up just a bit.

Putting your hands in your lap, you lean your head back against the chair. You're waiting.

The thunder is a distant harbinger of what's coming in off the ocean. Listening, you shut your eyes for a while.

Rain. Metal. Closing distance.

The door opening.

You look up and see Jake arrive in through the entryway. He has an umbrella in his hands, and stomps his feet on the mat just inside the house. "It's cats, dogs, and a few parakeets out there," he tells you, giving his umbrella a vigorous shake. It lets loose a small puddle onto the mat before Jake opens it, and sets it down just in the entryway to dry.

He toes off his shoes, leaving them as well, and hops out of the wet radius around the door, landing in his socks a few feet away.

Finally, he looks at you, and grins. "Ahoy, Dirk. Been waiting long?"

Have you? You shake your head, unsure.

He takes it as a no, and beams. "Well, good. I hate to leave such a dashing fellow waiting. Especially in such a state." You get a firm wink as Jake walks out of the room, up the stairs. "I'll be back in a shake, maybe two!"

Unsure what 'state' he means, you look down at yourself.

You're wearing his shirt. It's one of the old ones that's been through the wash approximately five million times. The green skull emblem is worn, the black lines faded to grey, the green cracking at various points. Stroking a hand down your chest, you can feel almost a layer of felted fuzz coming from it. It's a miracle the thing hasn't fallen apart.

Jake's shirt, and boxers, and nothing else. Okay, maybe you see the appeal, as much as you can see the appeal in yourself at any given point.

Stomping on each step as he comes back downstairs, Jake returns, wearing green slippers with bunny ears flopping off them.

You stare at them. He dramatically pauses and looks down. "What? Don't approve?"

"The ears," you point out. "Trip hazard."

"Heavens forbid. It's not like I can fly or anything." He walks over to the armchair, and you put your hands on the floor. "No, not yet," he tells you, quick enough to catch you. Stilling, you remain where you are, and Jake moves around you to sit behind you, his legs pressing on your arms. Bracketed in, you settle down. His legs give you a squeeze.

"Put your hands up, over your head," Jake tells you.

You lift them up, and feel Jake take hold of your left hand first. He wraps something around your wrist, a firmly padded cuff. Letting go, he takes your other hand, and does the same. The movement pulls both your hands together.

"Done," Jake says.

You lower your arms to find them linked by a short gunmetal green bar. Testing the range of motion, you find your wrists fairly mobile, but the bar unrelenting, giving you just about six inches of space.

"Comfortable?" Jake asks.

"Yeah," you tell him.

"Capital A. Now be a love and go make up some tea. I think that's just the thing for inclement weather like this. With the one tea, the loose leafy one."

Already, you're understanding the idea here. You put both your hands on the floor to push yourself to your feet. As you turn to look at Jake, you see him sprawled like a spoiled prince on a throne, arms spread, his legs almost obnoxiously wide. He smiles up at you as you pass him, and head to the kitchen.

The window in the kitchen is getting the direct brunt of the rain, the noise almost a din. There's enough coming down, it looks like rippling sheets covering the glass.

Shaking your head, you open the cabinet that has all your drinkware crap in it. Inside, you have the usually array of mugs and cloudy-bluegreen Coke glasses. Most go unused; you have a particular coffee mug you like, and both of you drink too much water and soda directly from the bottle to get much use out of the glassware.

  
Still. On the top shelf is a teapot with a matching pair of teacups.

You reach for it, and jerk to a halt when you wind up dragging your other hand along. It'd be nice to brace with one hand, then grab with the other, but that's not possible.

Frowning at your cuffs, you rethink this.

Having your hands restrained like this is a strange challenge. You are mobile and can still do most things, but everything comes in steps. You can't just grab the teapot, you have to go fetch the footstool then grab the teapot.

When you go to the pantry to look for the loose tea canisters you have, there's a load of shit in the way. You can't just bundle it up into one arm and grab the tea with the other. Instead, you have to grab spice bottles and sauce jars and popcorn bags two at a time, putting them on the counter until you have enough room to grab the canisters. You line them up on the counter, then put all the other shit back.

It's tedious, and should have you annoyed. But you just breathe out through your nose a little harder than usual and look over the labels. One of them is a genmaicha. That'll work. Jake loves it, with the toasted rice flavor it's got. You prefer something stronger, but this isn't about you.

The little sieve cup sits in the teapot. You put a few scoops of tea in it. Then, turn on the electric kettle.

While you wait for it to boil, you look at the cups. They match the teapot-- all of them look like lotus flowers, with their feet green lilypad-shaped. Someone gave it to you for housewarming.

There's two cups. You consider them. Somehow you don't think you'll be drinking, so you take the spare cup over to the sugar bag that sits on the counter. That'll work fine. You scoop out some.

When the water is just barely boiling, you pour it over the leaves and cap the teapot.

The next problem is that you need both hands to carry the teapot, lest you burn yourself like a dumbass. Slowing down, you check around for a solution. Hung on the side of the fridge is one of those breakfast-in-bed carry trays. So, you put everything on that.

The handles are too far apart for you to use since it’s weighted down. Now you grit your teeth, a little frustrated at this whole production. How long ago did Jake send you to make tea? Are you taking too long? What's the punishment if you screw up?

You shake your cuffs in a brief bout of irritation, then let them fall limp against you. Okay. Figure it out.

Maybe you can get some twine and make a handle. But two vertices of movement for something that is carrying heavy items that can slide is asking for disaster. You could just carry one thing at a time to Jake, but somehow that feels like an admission of defeat you'll never recover from. Maybe you can rest the tray on your shoulder…

That's not the thing, but it's the next step to the solution. You slide the footstool over to the counter and stand on it. That puts you at the right height to brace the tray on your hip. Holding it with one of your hands, you carefully slip it off the counter, relieved to find it balanced and stable enough.

The step down is treacherous, and you take it slowly. The cups shift a bit, but otherwise you're fine.

The fact of the matter is that you don't have the hips for this. Walking back to the living room is a slow, gradual progress. Holding onto the tray is easy, but having your other arm awkwardly dragged across your chest makes you feel lopsided.

You take it like flash stepping, but in reverse. Precise movements, but slow. Perfect breathing. Stepping on the toes and the front pad of your foot. It's somehow easier in your barefeet.

Your focus is so completely on your movement, you only look up as Jake lets out a little happy gasp. "There you are! Was wondering if you'd gone out to the tea fields yourself to select the dewy leaves by hand."

Glancing up at him makes you feel unsteady, so you quick look back at the tray. "No. Just toasted the rice myself. With a heat lamp and magnifying glass."

He's got himself situated directly in the middle of the loveseat, looking eager and pleased with you. So you guess you aren't in trouble after all.

When you attempt to hand off the tray, bending your knees to deposit it on his lap, he takes it from you with both hands. The sigh of relief you let out is instant and involuntary; you twist your body the opposite way, stretching out.

"When you're done," Jake prompts.

You guiltily stop, and turn back to face him.

Jake gives you an indulgent smile, then lifts the tray up. "Lay down."

He's unrelenting. He doesn't tell you again, nor elaborates when you lift your eyebrows at him. He just keeps the tray aloft.

Cautiously, you move onto the sofa, planting your hands on the cushion on one side of Jake, then getting one leg up on his other side. He adjusts, opening his legs further so you can lay down across his lap more. It takes a little adjustment here and there before you tuck up your other leg and settle.

The tray comes down on your back. Your hands clench in the cushions, and you breath out.

"Easy," Jake says, and seems to steady the tray. "Don't want to tip it."

Right, if you let out a big aggrieved sigh, you might unbalance the damn thing. You nod and cross your arms in front of you, doing your best to be still enough to act as Jake's little lap table.

It seems to work, because he stars making up a cup. "Hm. No spoon?"

Shit. You shut your eyes and bow your head. It's always fucking something.

Jake's hand strokes over your neck, from your hair down to the borrowed shirt. "Easy, I said, don't you knot yourself up there, Strider. We can do that some other night."

That little remark slots home in you like a key, working in tandem with all the other information you have and the low simmering feeling. You're dreaming again. Weird.

The weight on your back lifts somewhat. Jake probably picking up the teapot and pouring the tea. The weight returns before long and you take a slow breath.

Jake slurps the tea a little bit, and smacks his lips. "Oh I like this one! Excellent choice."

You shrug off the sentiment, just staring down at the thread of the sofa under you. "We're dreaming."

"Hm? Oh, yessiree. Currently sawing our logs and having a little midnight meeting. It's good, being able to multitask like this, isn't it?"

"Yeah but…" You wish you could look up at him. Getting a gauge of his face would help. "This is something we could just… do in actual reality. I thought the point was doing the kind of outlandish shit we need the power of somnabulvision for." Shifting on your elbows, you try to get comfortable again. "Kind of seems a waste."

Jake's hand cards deep in your hair, thumb stroking your temple. "Mmmm, I don't think so. Maybe I ran out of ideas."

"You did not run out of weird sex dream ideas," you inform him dryly.

"No, I didn't. But isn't this nice?" He palms your leg, petting you there too. "Sometimes we can just do something nice, you know. Strange alien mindmelding and illicit sex drugging is all very fun, but you're pretty alluring all on your own, Strider."

"Or you think I can't handle whatever you have cooking up next without a break," you say.

Jake drinks more tea, loudly. "Maybe I needed a break."

The cool, sarcastic _*yeah, right*_ is on the tip of your tongue. But you can't see Jake's face, can't get a read on him. You didn't think he was having trouble with the intensity of the dreams so far, but... You bite your lip and rest your head against the cushions.

Silence falls again as Jake takes his break across your back. When you start to relax, you can feel the minute changes as they happen. Jake keeps leaving the teacup in different places when he puts it down. When he pours more into the cup and resugars it, you hold your breath, keeping your back flat.

Dimly, you can hear a few noises over you. Chimes and dings. You sigh and turn your head the other way, resting your cheek down. "Question."

"Answer, compadre! Hopefully."

"When you play phone games in a dream, do you always win?"

Jake lets out an affronted noise. "Mean. Endlessly cruel. Wretched tease you are." He pauses. "Hm, I guess I do."

Something gets tossed aside on the sofa. Probably his phone getting tossed carelessly to the side. You are fairly sure his hope powers manifest in keeping his screen unbroken. There is no other explanation. "Well, now I need something else to occupy me…" He hums to himself.

More very distinct noises: a wooden slide of a drawer, small objects bumping and moving around. Your toes curl. You know that sound. The table next to the sofa has a hidden drawer in it for keeping supplies. Hidden, because you sometimes like to pretend to be functional rational adults and have your friends over. But there's plenty of vital gear stashed in there, to make impromptu sofa action go a bit smoother.

Jake's bright and cheerful, almost singsong as he sorts through for what he's looking for. Eventually the drawer shuts, and you brace yourself. It's impossible to know what exactly he picked, but it's not hard to figure out what's coming.

"Now, be careful and don't topple the tray," Jake tells you as he slides his hand up over your ass. His fingers nudge the shirt up to your waist before catching on the elastic band of your boxers. Tugging firmly, he draws the back down, over the curve of your ass.

His hand is especially warm as he cups one cheek and starts kneading it. Probably from the tea. You take a steady breath and reposition your legs as he gropes you thoroughly, moving from intent touch to practically massaging your ass.

It's just a distraction. You already know this, but let it happen. The more tension he works out of you with hand-on-ass action, the less likely you are to jump and jostle the tray when he sticks it in you.

And he does, eventually. Hold you open with one hand, then pushes something against your hole. You have enough time to figure out it's very smooth and it's on the smaller side of your toys before he applies pressure and it starts to sink in, opening you up with ease.

You flex your fingers and grip the couch again, lowering your head as you hold as still as you can. It's hard to do both-- be still and also let it in. A few sharper, shocked breaths huff out of you, but you keep it together.

The toy remains the same basic width all the way down, slickly frictionless. You try to clench around it, but it's not like most insert toys you use, no plug point for you to hold onto.

Jake pushes it fairly deep in you, then just stops, and goes back to kneading your ass again. "Excellent. Didn't spill a drop."

That's great and you're glad, but your brow furrows as you rock your hips and go tense around the toy. "Wait," you say. "Is this one new? This isn't one of ours."

Jake's hand on you freezes for just a moment before he starts snickering. "Dirk, land's fuckin' sakes, you are incredible. Do you know that? Gracious, who wouldn't be just enamored with you?"

You lift your head and turn until you can almost see him. "What?"

His hand comes down hard on your shoulder, putting you back into your place as his little pale freckled table. "You! Hell's bells, you can pick out what toys are and aren't part of our impression collection with just a squeeze of your award-winning peach! That's such talent!"

Your face contorts as you try not to laugh, but he's so goddamn fucking ridiculous, you put your head down against the cushion to try and muffle the sound.

The hand on your ass seems fond somehow as Jake keeps petting you in a vaguely possessive manner. The teapot lifts again, and rests down again. "Hrm. Little oversteeped."

That's not your fault. You reach out with your bound hands and grab a throw pillow, pull it back to rest your shoulders and head on it. This is easy. Even if you're not sure what the thing Jake put in you is, but it's fine. The fact you have something in you is oddly relaxing in of itself. If he tried to fuck you with it, that tray would crash to the ground, but this… is nice.

Eventually, Jake tires of your ass (at least momentarily, his fixation is eternal). His hands switch, and he starts to pet your hair, avid with his fingers rubbing in, tracing your ears, and scratching your scalp, as if you were just a big cat.

It's soothing. You feel warm all over, like heat is growing in you with each deepening breath.

But it's more than that. You lift your head to say. "The hell is that?"

He could play dumb; he doesn't bother. "I made it up for the dream! Do you like it?" He touches the dildo in you, nudging it in a slow circle. It's warm. The fucking thing has been getting almost cozily warm since he put it inside you.

"You're so goddamn weird," you tell him.

"No more talking," he decides, and pushes your head back down. His petting resumes, and you sigh. "Just enjoy the moment, Dirk."

That sounds good to you. You lay still and let Jake finish his tea.  

After, he puts the tray aside and tells you quietly, "Budge up a bit."

Working in tandem, you wind up laying on your side across the sofa with Jake sandwiching you against the backrest. The sofa was picked in part for how roomy it was, but you're two grown men, and it's still a tight squeeze.

He grabs the sofa back and uses it to haul himself completely flush against you. The pressure on your ass make the toy feel more present, but it's just subsuming heat into your body. You're only half hard and mostly just tired.

Jake tucks his nose against your neck and wraps his arms around you. One hand cups your dick, fingers lax and undemanding.

"So goddamn weird," you mumble.

"Shhh," Jake says, and cuddles closer to you, letting out a big, pleased sigh.

You both sink like that, warm and comfortable and relaxed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **chapter content:** service submission, aftercare, subspace
> 
> Arc here. This one is a little weird. I found myself wanting to justify it to the jam channel while I was working on it. Like, to me, there is something very soothing about putting Dirk in a position like this, where all of the mindless tasks of his life don't work and he has to approach everything step by step instead. IDK. 
> 
> Also fun fact, I actually hate genmaicha, I'm just fairly sure Jake would enjoy it.
> 
> Mims is next with a good good good one.


	10. 10 October - black and blue, and red all through (Impact Play)

You open your eyes in the dark and find yourself in your bedroom. There is just enough moonlight casting through the window for you to recognize the vague shape of your bedroom, though you know the feeling of your bed underneath you by touch alone. When you go to sit up, though, your feet jerk to a halt, held back. 

This is confusing. You push up backward to your hands and knees and awkwardly shove a hand back between your legs to figure out what's going on. 

Your ankles are cuffed and attached to a medium-length bar, holding them apart. Okay. A spreader bar, sure. You're not certain how Jake got that on you without you waking up, but alright. 

At the center of the bar there's something like a D ring welded to it, and a tether of some sort tied to that and leading… backwards, past where you can reach, but clearly tying you to something to keep you from going anywhere, but leaving the rest of you free. 

It's oddly disorienting, being in your bedroom, as if you expected to be somewhere else. You remember being here before, when you went to bed, how Jake draped himself heavily against your back and you bitched up a storm about not being able to draw a full breath with him crushing you down. 

And now you're in bed again, in the middle of the night, and… 

You feel around the edges of your mind for sleepiness, for the telltale headache of insomnia or the fuzziness of recent slumber. It isn't there. You just feel suspended in the moment, having arrived in it with sudden, alert curiosity. 

Jake hasn't revealed himself yet, but… You consider these facts and conclude that you're probably dreaming, even in this setting that is oddly accurate to the waking world. Which means it's only a matter of time before the fun starts. 

But, again, your room remains quiet and still. You can't hear anything beyond your own breathing. 

You decide to preempt the waiting. "Are you there?" you call into the darkness. 

His hand slaps down hard on your ass, and you jerk and yelp. "Not off to an auspicious start, are we?" he asks. "I let you be for a second and you decide you're allowed to speak out of turn, is that how we're playing this?" 

Okay. You breathe in deep against the sting. Biting your tongue unless he asks a question, sure. You can do that. 

You don't reply to him, hoping he'll lay out the rules in more detail. After a moment, you finally hear him move, sounding like he's prowling around the room, circling up the side of the bed. 

"Here's how it goes," he tells you. A moment later, his hand fists in your hair and drags your head back. You can see enough in the darkness to find his silhouette, standing over you. "It's bright as midday in here for yours truly, so I can see every little twitch you make, and you'd better believe I'll be watching. You can weep and whine or kick up whatever racket strikes your fancy, so long as it isn't words."

Accordingly and involuntarily, you let out a whimper, then bite the inside of your cheek. You can almost hear his grin when he continues. 

"Since I'm feeling magnanimous, you can have one word, but I'll be revoking it if you use it to make too much of your fussy noises you're so prone to about wanting to be the one who calls the shots when we both know I'm the true marksman of us two. Got it?" 

"Mhm," you say. Doesn't count as a word, just a sound, a response. 

He pats your head in approval. "You want to guess the word?" he offers. "I'll give you one free shot, and that's your last word for tonight." 

You run your tongue along the inside of your teeth. Could be anything, really, though more likely to be something sexy. _More_ or _please_ or _sir_ or _yes_. But… "Jake," you guess. 

He laughs. "My plum perfect boy. You always know how to tickle a fellow. Yes, that's the one. You can scream that as much as you please." 

Jake gives you one last pet on the head, tugging lightly on your hair, before his hand shifts to drag his nails slowly down your back as he paces down behind you again. You arch involuntarily into the sting as it heats a long line down to the main event, which is to say, your ass. 

His hand leaves you, and you strain your ears for a hint of what's to come. 

As it turns out, you didn't have to listen all that hard. Through the darkness comes the sound of him unbuckling his belt. For a moment, you think you misunderstood, that he's planning to fuck you, but the sound of a zipper doesn't follow. 

Instead, you hear him take a firm grip on the belt, buckle jingling when it hits his hand. He doesn't drop it to the floor, and your entire body goes first cold and then hot all over with anticipation. 

If he let you talk, you'd probably have said something embarrassing like _god yes_ when he runs the smooth, wide leather across your skin. He trails it over your back gently, over your spine and the curve of your lower back, places he would never hit you, then across your shoulder blades, where he certainly has hit you before. 

He skips letting it drag across your ass, instead drops it to catch against your calves. You feel the sharp curve in the leather. He has it doubled back on itself, probably buckled the ends together to make it easier to hold. 

An involuntary shudder courses through you, and Jake laughs softly. Right. He said he could see you, that it was day-bright in here for him. He's left you in the dark. The strongest sensory input you'll receive is going to be pain. 

Your dick gives a happy twitch where it hangs flush and heavy between your thighs. God, this is going to be great. 

When the belt reaches your thighs, it shifts off you with a soft whisper of a sound before colliding with your skin, sounding off a sharp smack. You jerk away from the feeling, more in surprise than pain, but then relax back into it. The belt is wide, and the resulting strike carries a nice, solid thud to it. 

"Check?" Jake asks, taking the belt away again -- preparing for a real hit, you think, if you give him the go-ahead.  

"Golden," you reply. It'll probably be your last word for the night that isn't his name, unless he asks for another check later on, and you wiggle your ass in the air meaningfully. 

You earn yourself a firmer smack for trying to lure him in, which is only fair. He catches you across both thighs, right under the crease of your ass, and you cry out at the pain that sears for a sharp moment through your balls. You breathe. He gives you that long second to breathe and to prepare.

Jake is good at this. He starts you off slower with a few gentler hits against either side of your ass, giving your skin time to flush hot and pink. You squirm without really meaning to, the sensation digging deep into you, making you press back for more. Your face feels as warm as your ass does, and you bury your face in the crook of one elbow.  
  
Sucking in deep breaths, you relax into the feeling. Jake begins picking up the pace, letting his strikes hit you in smooth succession. You've seen him practice this movement, how his arm arcs in a neat figure-eight so that the belt will hit you evenly. He can do this for a long time before he gets tired.  
  
The thought makes you moan, harmonizing to the satisfying swish of the belt.  
  
Jake chuckles. "Well, if you're enjoying yourself so much already," he murmurs, only half a sentence, but you suck in a bracing breath just in time for him to hit you -- one-two, against each cheek -- with a hard smack.

It's impossible not to moan again. You arch your back, push your ass further up into the air. It's not the easiest pose to hold, with your legs held so firmly apart. It forces your knees to spread wide and puts you off balance, liable to slump forward against the bed if you let your arms give out. 

But at the same time, you have great incentive to stay up. Jake gives you great incentive, and boy is he starting to give it to you. The sound is almost as good as the pain. It's deeply satisfying, the swish and ringing smack, matches well with each deep thud. 

You're making more noise, unintentionally, sounds and sighs and gasps slipping out of you. You can hear Jake's breathing, how it's roughened and fallen into time with his movements, and that's good, too. It's always nice to listen to him. 

You can picture what the skin on your ass looks like right now. Pink, red-hot, overlapping lines of flush from the edges of the belt. God, it feels so good, digs so deeply into you with the pain, especially with how each smack builds on the last and all the ones before it. You doubt you have much skin at all that hasn't been abused, so every strike lands atop the ones before. 

The thought makes your mouth fall open around a moan of his name. "Jake," you say, and your voice is choked and hitching. 

You hear him suck in a deep breath. "There's my good boy," he says, delivers another pair of hard strikes to each of your cheeks, and you whine out another sound. 

You want — to say something, to ask for more, ask him to hit you harder, but you can't. Rules are rules. "Jake," you moan again. "Jake, _Ja-aake."_ He gets you hard enough to make your voice break, and you're so hard that it aches. 

He didn't give you permission to touch. You want to, though, badly. Wouldn't be a good idea. You'd lose your balance in a second, and it puts your hand too close to the line of fire, but, god. It feels like each hit sinks right into your balls, making them tighten, making your dick itch to be touched. 

It's so good, it's so good. You could lose your mind from how good it is. 

You can't just lie here and take it or you really will lose it. Squeezing your eyes shut, you let yourself pant and make all kinds of really embarrassing whimpery sounds, the kinds that Jake loves to hear. It's good, pleasing him. It makes you feel so warm to know that you can make him happy. 

This makes him happy, too. He's told you so, said that he likes how it takes work, likes how physical and tangible the results are. He really likes to touch you when he's done working you over, run his hands over your stinging skin until you squirm away, or squirm into his hands and plead for more. 

You are always careful not to assume, especially with things that feel so good, but… It's a pretty safe bet Jake is enjoying the hell out of this. You whimper and press up more, shuffle your elbows against the bed to keep yourself braced. 

It feels like… 

It feels like you could do this forever. For hours, at least, take all he's got and wear both of yourselves out, let him use you until he's had enough, until you've given him everything he could want. 

More of those whimpering noises are slipping out of you, and your face feels hot. Your whole body feels hot, warm and content and flushed with wanting. It must be written on your skin, how good this is. He has to be able to see it. You want more, you _want._

"Jake," you sigh again, and it doesn't come out a plea or a demand, just a happy sound, like a contented sigh when a cool breeze soothes the mid-afternoon heat. 

You're distantly aware that you're going to that floating place, the one where you can rest for ages in a cocoon of warmth. That's nice. It really is nice. You like that place, and Jake loves it when he successfully puts you in deep. He likes to touch your face and hair and murmur soft things, soft words that feel as good as each of his strikes feel now. 

Eventually, the heat under your skin builds until you come, even untouched as you are, spilling against your bed, and you moan faintly, wanting to rub against the sheets, wanting to keep yourself braced up for Jake, _wanting_. He doesn't give you a hand, doesn't give you anything to help, just another hit so hard that your dick tries to jump again, even though you're spent, so spent. 

He does pause, just a brief moment, runs his hand over your ass. You shake, rub your face against the bed before resettling. It's a lot. You could do more, you think, if he wanted more, but it hurts a lot in the best way, deep and thick as molasses, dragging you down. 

"You're smiling," Jake observes quietly. "Enjoying ourselves, are we?" 

You hum indistinctly and push into his hand despite the throbbing sting. He laughs quietly. 

"Here," he says, and you hear the belt jangle as he sets it on the bed beside you. Then his hand is on the buckle that keeps your ankle strapped to the bar, and you relax, sink deeper down against the bed as he frees first one leg and then the other. You stretch them out to their full lengths and float lightly inside your body. 

Jake crawls up the bed next to you, settles at your hips. He pets your ass, smooths his hand over the skin gently, both soothing and worsening the pain. You distantly become aware that you're making quiet, contented humming noises. It would take so much effort to stop, so you don't. You just let yourself drift happily under his hand. 

It's almost weird to feel this good, to feel your whole body humming in a pleased way that reminds you of really good orgasms. It feels like your whole body came, but in steady waves of pain instead of a burst of pleasure. 

It's good. You like it so much. 

"All peachy, peach?" Jake asks into the space between your bodies. 

"Mmm," you hum in distant response. 

He laughs quietly. "Alright. Just enjoy yourself, then, pet." 

Jake settles down next to you on the bed, establishes himself against your side as a solid warmth for you to lean into. You sigh out in satisfied bliss and let yourself float away.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extended tags: impact play, belt as implement of inflicting pain, pain play, some degree of masochism? dirk very much enjoys himself, spreader bars, mild bondage, subspace


	11. 11 October - proper preparations (Negotiation)

The trouble is, you're in it, until you're not.

Your arms are back, hooked over and strapped down to some uncomfortable iron post. No matter how much you pull and struggle, you can't manage to get free. On the floor around you is a circle of white chalk, surrounding you in a random collection of alchemic symbols. You only recognize a few of the letters, enough to know they spell out some rite of transformation (and certain doom) for you.

You are in the company of a witch boy. He's practically bouncing in delight as he throws little glass baubles and bundled herbs into his cauldron. It froths, and expels heaps of richly emerald smoke from its maw that spills over the ground and begins to spread towards you.

He uses his wand to nudge his hat up a bit, tossing you a toothy grin over his shoulder. "Keep wiggling 'round like that and you're like to bruise yourself something awful, poppet." As he stands there, he reaches up into the loose greenery that seems to be growing over the brim of his hat; that's silverleaves and twisty vines and some brilliant red berries. He pops one off and into his mouth. "Mm. Relax! Take a few… deep breaths." He gives the smoke a significant, heavy look.

"I--" You pause to blow out a lungful of air at the smoke, pushing it away. More is coming. "I told you I'd leave, I wouldn't tell anyone about this place, you don't gotta do this."

The witch tap-tap-taps his wand against his hip. "Oh, I'm sure as sugar that's so. But can't be too careful with loose lips. Much better to make certain you won't accidentally blab." He beams, and bounces more, his excitement palpable. "We've got ways of making you _not_ talk."

"With-- with what? Triggering my asthma?" You make a game attempt to blow the smoke away again, but there's too much of it now. It spreads over you, coating your bent legs and creeping up to your hips, rising like the tide coming in. You don't feel the smoke, but it's making something happen, and you sure as hell feel that. Your skin itches, a million needles of white-hot sensation pricking you in rippling waves.

The witch blinks at you, a beat of silence before he stalks forward to the edge of the circle. "The way I see it, fair interloper, is that you can't tell anyone about me… if you can't speak. Now just…"

He pauses again, a little moue of frustration on his face.

"Hang on, this isn't working," Jake says, and the dream goes eerily quiet. You aren't aware of the BGM pumping into the scene until it’s gone. The colors go haywire, ultra saturated and sickly psychedelic.

When you blow the smoke again, it dissipates like the remnants of a shitty fog machine after a washed up rock show. "What's wrong?"

Jake cross his arms over his chest, the long green wood wand tucking up from the crook of his elbow. "I don't think I thought this one through. Some of it's good, it's firing on all sixes, but the rest…"

You pull at your restraints and find they dissolve like sand around you. It's a relief to sit down, and you stretch your legs out in front of you, back to the iron post. "Okay. We're pretty early on. Wanna talk about it?" Jake nods slowly. "What was your plan?"

He looks over at the cauldron, and kicks it with the side of his foot. "I had this whole song and dance routine where I was going to force you to inhale a bunch of smoke. It was s'posed to turn you into something else. I thought that was fun."

This all sounds reasonable to you. You make a show of nodding along. "That's a good idea. I assume the loss of my humanity was going to… either humiliate me or get my engine running."

"Well, knowing _you,"_ Jake teases for a moment before his face falls again.

"But it's not working for you," you point out. "Why?"

"It's silly!" Jake opens his arms, waving at himself. "Look, look at this whole kit I've worked out! I'm raring to go with this witch thing, see! And I thought I looked damned good as a witch. The hat especially."

"It's a pretty good hat," you agree. It makes him look more cute than sexy, admittedly, but you can make that work. There some special perks to that set-up: being captured and controlled by someone adorable and a little twee, rather than just domineeringly sexy. You just had to frame it correctly. "And the… skirt? Is that a skirt?"

Jake beams at you and stalks forward into the cyclonic pink-blue-orange shifting light. His hips and upper thighs are covered in some almost ruffled navy black thing. "Looks like a skirt but then--" He hops and lands on spread legs. "See! It's shorts, but they have flair."

"Sweet," you compliment. The colliding colors is starting to make you queasy. You frown at them and reach out one hand. With a slow turn, like spinning down a dial on your turntable, everything goes muted.

Jake claps. "Hail there, you're getting the hang of it!"

"You're the… themes and the ideas. I'm the detail work and veracity of the illusion." You mess with the dream a little more until it's a minty-blue color. Good on the eyes, very calming. Resting your hands on your thighs, you sit back and take a breath. "Anyway. What happened?"

His heels tap together as he thinks. "I just didn't fully cogitate on the logical conclusion to the blasted thing. I'm a witch. So I was gonna turn you into a cat! Because, you know, familiars?" He tucks the wand under his hair and uses it to rub his scalp.

"Oh my god," you groan. "Cat person. You fucker."

Jake laughs. "Right! You said it, and I figured, okay, I'll do that!" His smile fades. "And some of that is fun, like the cool ears and the tail and some scritchy claws. But then… will you eventually just become a cat?" He seems to ponder this very seriously. "Can't get my rocks off on a cat, even if it’s in a scene. And I sort of wanted to get off in this one, you know?"

"Stop the presses," you say dryly. "We finally found something Jake English can't get a boner over. Holy shit."

Jake blows out a raspberry at you, rolling his eyes. "Ass. But yeah, s'what's tripping me up."

"Lemme think."

Jake nods, as if satisfied to have you on the case, then plops down on the floor between your legs. As you both sit there, he prods you with that wand. Idly, you catch it in your hand, only for him to let out a whine and pull it back. He goes back to tracing it over you distractedly.

"Do you like the idea?" Jake asks quietly. "I don't want to… you know."

"I'm down for almost anything."

"Almost," Jake echoes, and looks down at the space between your legs. He taps his wand on your knee. "Not the snow one."

"That was just a matter of the details. You did way better next time."

"And Brain Ghost Dirk."

Oh. Hm. You know your lips press hard together at the mention of that particular splinter. Jake's shoulders hunch a little.

"I'd say I shouldn't've sprung that on you," Jake says. "But to be all on the up-and-up, I _didn't_ actually, that was a straight hijack of our shared dreamscape!"

"You mentioned workshopping this with a mutual friend. You meant him?"

Jake sighs and nods.

Enough. You whip the wand out of his hand and spin it in yours, start to prod him right back. "Before you drown yourself in the well of the woebegones, think about it. Maybe I was… I had some misgivings about having to put up with another me, but consider that dream didn't even start to crack or glitch out. So, it was…" Jake is giving you little hopeful looks through his eyelashes. "Sometimes when we do a scene, I'm not _comfortable_. It pushes me. That's not instantly a bad thing. And I had a Neverland-wrecking safeword if I wanted it, right? Whether I wanted to use it or not."

It's a gradual thing, but Jake's dour expression fades and he nods. "Yeah. And I think if you don't want him slithering into this, that alone will stop him from popping up again."

"Yeah. Good." You sigh. "Where were we?"

"This dream. You were going to fix it up."

"Right." You clear your throat, and tap Jake's knee in a steady rhythm. "So. You want to have an orgasm in this one. You want me captive and to transform me into something you get to fuck. But nothing too weird or…"

"I can do weird! Just…" His nose wrinkles. "Not a cat."

"Never pegged you for so closeminded. Downright adverse to adventure." He rolls his eyes at you. "But yeah, we can keep the general themes you wanted, but I'll figure out a better setting and concept that'll jive better."

His lip juts out again. "So… not a witch thing?"

You're not really versed in witch things. You think it over, trying to adapt one of your ideas to something that'll work… but before anything comes to mind, Jake waves his hand. "Hang it up, it's fine. I'll hold onto the witch thing and use it for something else. You go ahead and pick whatever scenario works best for _this_ and I'll rework the other thing."

"Sounds good. Let's adjourn for tonight, and come back tomorrow."

"Capital." He leans in and kisses you swift and chaste. "We'll have a saucy time of it later. Now, sleep."  
  
"We are sleeping, Jake," you remind him, but your head is heavy, and you lay it on his shoulder. His own head rests against you, and together you sink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **chapter content:** a scratched dream, and talking about kink
> 
> Arc here. I would be remiss not to point out that Meruperu has been doing art to match with the dreams. They have posted up to Dream 7, the Weird Xeno Dream, and everyone should take a look because it's incredible. Their NSFW blog is over [here](https://ups-my-hand-slipped.tumblr.com/) and as always I keep a tag of fic-based art over [here](https://callmearcturus.tumblr.com/tagged/based%20on%20my%20fic).


	12. 12 October - tasteful remedies for wandering feet (Corruption)

Your strength has left you when the faeries finally drag you into their twilight forest.

You have been on the run for days, evading them. The entourage of guards and carriage drivers that were conveying you back to your father's castle fell to a faerie trick; taking a break to snack on the apples from a tree, they all soon fell asleep. Left alone, you rode. When your horse mysteriously stopped obeying your commands, you ran. Your boots beat against the frost-tipped grass as you fled.

With time, the faeries herded you away from the forest's edge, away from the safety of your kingdom's territory, deeper into the woods until you lost all sense of direction.

You fell. It was inevitable. 

Now, your solace is the knowledge you put up a fight. Still, when they catch you, they immediately steal your boots and socks, making any more attempts to escape across the cold ground dangerous.

There is no dignity in the way they grip your arms and pull you behind them. It's unprincely, but you can't get your feet under you. All you can do is look up at the tree canopy and the perpetual twilight above you.

Strangely, the frosted grass does not melt or catch on you as you are pulled along it. No dampness settles into your clothes, and every sprig remains pointy and menacing in your wake.

After a long journey through the forest, you start to see shapes moving around you. Amid the shifting trees and underbrush, there are figures. Some tall and humanoid, some animal and hunched, some grand like maybe a centaur watching you pass. Nothing is familiar. You feel the distance from safety acutely.

Your captors lift you off the ground, heaving you up in a display of easy power. There is no time to get a sense of your surroundings before you are brought to bear against something curved and solid. 

Briefly you recognize the sensation of bare wood, then the short tree-thing you have been thrown onto comes to life. Long willowy branches loop around your wrists. Desperate, you try to wrench your hands out of the faeries' grip. They hold you until you are locked in place, and the tree seat drags you down.

They let you go, and their lack of concern makes your situation more clear than anything else. As you jerk against your bounds and struggle, they do nothing. Not even watch you.

It seems the possibility of trouble from you is nil, sequestered in a living throne. You fume, glaring at their backs as they leave.

Keeping your head held up to glare hurts. You slump, resting against your wooden throne. 

Over your head is more beautiful twilight, obscured by a tree that reaches across your vision. Its leaves are bright and gleaming like silver, its branches leaning under the weight of dense, fist-sized fruits.

You hear it when one falls, and turn your head towards the dull thud noise.

Through the mist, someone walks into the clearing. He's broad and has skin like frozen walnut and eyes like glowing wisps. The shadows from the trees run over him in scattered patterns. 

He bends at the waist and lifts a fruit from the grass. It fits his hand like a key. He tosses it into the air and catches it with a swipe of his hand, the sound of flesh on flesh loud in the little clearing of trees.

It's not shadows on him. You think they are tattoos, shifting and circling the curve of his biceps, his shoulders, sweeping lovingly down his chest and around his ribs. They are leaf shadow, then stripes, then scattered spots, then something like lettering before they diffuse into sitting shade again.

Around his brow, there is a band of _light_ , thin but bold in the twilight. A crown.

"Finally," he says, voice whimsical and warm as a hearthfire. "You don't know how long I've been expecting you. Prince Strider. You grew up into a handsome creature."

You pull against the reedy cords locking you in place. "You know me." You keep it from being a question. The position you are in is perilous enough.

"I own you," the sidhe says with terrifying candor. "It's just taken this long for the lead to snap taut. See, your father needed to secure his power when he took the throne. In return, he traded his firstborn. An old sort of payment, but it's tradition. And what are we if not our traditions?" He takes out a little silver flip-knife. It cuts into the fruit with ease, taking a wedge out.

You don't know what to say. It would be a comfort if that didn't sound like the sort of idiotic shit your father would pull in a crisis. The gravity of your situation is coming down around your head.

"Why now?" you ask, because the fae cannot lie and thus you are already tremendously screwed. "I wasn't born yesterday."

The sidhe holds the wedge by the skin and licks the rich blood green inside. It moves with his pink tongue, into his mouth, and he swallows. You swallow too, watching. "More fun this way. Waiting until you hit the age of majority, then chasing you down. They always get complacent, see, the humans. Get used to having their firstborns and don't want to acknowledge what's come moseying down the road 'til its at their front door." He grins, teeth white and a little larger than human teeth. Sharper, maybe. "Are you hungry?"

As he walks close enough to lean and stand over you, you can see the lingering color around his mouth.

Running for your life has some predictable effects. You are _famished._ Just watching the sidhe eat makes your stomach twist like a glove around a blade. It seems like a bad idea for him to know that. "What's your name?" you ask in return.

The sidhe chuckles and rests a hand on the wooden seat, over your head. Placing the fruit to his lips, he sucks at the nectar, lips curving along the skin. "Hm. An answer for an answer, I think. I am Jacob, king of this place. Call me Jake."

"Jake. I'm starved," you answer, mouth moving, compelled by something deep, deep in your marrow to go along with the trade.

"Well, lucky you, pet! Putting your feet up under a meadplum tree! There's only one in this forest, you know. Very special." 

For him, it's as easy as reaching up and plucking a fruit from the tree. Another perfect meadplum rests over his palm as he offers it to you. "Want one?"

Desperately, but there's no compulsion on your lips now. You curl them back and bare your teeth at him, as if the animal gesture might be more effective on a creature like him. "You must think I'm stupid," you grit out at him.

Rather than anger or surprise, something soft like amusement or even pity takes over his handsome face. "No, pet, no. I think you're human, and so fallible."

Saying nothing more, he takes his little silver knife to the meadplum, scoring it with a few whip-quick slices.

Then, he stands directly at your side, looming above you. You try to lean away, but the tree throne has you held fast, and even tightens around you as you squirm.

The sidhe Jake reaches over you, and squeezes the fruit in his fist. It resists him, and some of its violent preternatural green flesh pushes from the scored lines.

It's wet as a storm at sea, and heavy threads of nectar gush from it, and land on your face, dripping over your nose, down over your mouth. With a shocked grunt, you shut it tight, keeping the warm, viscous liquid out.

Jake smiles and shakes out his hand, making more nectar fall on you, even on your brow and sliding down your cheek.

The mess on you is palpable; the juice is warm, almost _hot_ , and thick enough to cling to you. Shaking your head displaces some of it, makes it runs in rivulets down into your hair and past your jaw.

Like this, you can smell it. The name is fitting; it's an intense sweet smell, and somehow fermented. The urge to clean your mouth, to lick it away, is so strong you rock your head against the seat. You can't. You really, really can't, even as the nectar seems to pool in the seam of your lips, pressing in, heavy and begging you to open up.

You let out a low, tremulous whine, desperately looking up at Jake.

He idly peels the rest of the fruit and scoops out the insides, sucking bites off the flat of his knife as he watches you.

It's not fair, that you are tired and hungry and can smell how heady it is. Just a bit might fill you up. Just your tongue sweeping over your lip, collecting the burning sweetness from the seal of your mouth, letting it pass your teeth and into you. It's closer to syrup than mead, and you run your tongue through it, swishing it around. It tastes like an entire wine cellar, like an orchard hung too long, like amber should taste given its golden appeal. 

You lick around your mouth, reaching as far as you can to get more until you're cleaner for it. 

The sidhe chuckles, and tosses the empty skin of the meadplum away before holding out his palm. There is lingering nectar on his skin, finding the fine lines of his fingers, highlighting the palmistry waiting there.

Another fruit falls from the tree, and lands solidly in his cupped hand. "Ready for a bite?" He takes his knife to the fruit again. "Unfortunately the skin is quite inedible. But you seem a resourceful boy."

You feel empty, desperately so, like you have the cobwebbed stomach of a desert wanderer. Watching Jake prepare the meadplum, you lick your mouth again and whine. Hopefully that's enough. You don't want to say it.

Despite your relief, it's not actually a kindness when Jake takes that as assent and steps in to give you the meadplum. His big, warm hand cups the back of your head, helping you hold it up. The meadplum is pressed against your mouth, and over the curve of it you can see the sidhe above, watching you expectantly.

You can't bite it. You furrow your brows back up at him, and say, "I don't understand," with your lips moving against the fruit.

"Go on," he says. "Eat. You were born with more than just teeth."

The fruit is sliced deeply, dripping against your mouth. Flicking your tongue out to lap up the nectar is already second nature. Then, of course, you want more. You can't eat the skin, so you lap at the cut, pushing your tongue with greater force against it. 

It spills more out into your mouth, but as you tongue the fruit further open, you find the flesh inside. The texture is exotic and strange, reminding you vaguely of imported dragonfruit with the delicate meat in its tough pink vessel. But the meadplum is even more yielding, and it's incredibly simple to push your tongue into the slice Jake made and scoop it out to eat. 

The mess is fucking absurd. The faerie prick can't just give it to you in portions like a civil being. No, the prince has to eat out the fucking fruit instead. Unbelievable.

But once you start, it's hard to stop. The taste is very similar to the nectar, but isn't quite the same. It's a tartness, so intense it feels like it might be numbing. The sensation is so unique, you keep wanting more of it, and shove your face deep into the fruit, until you can reach all of it and lick out the last morsels.

When the meadplum is just its skin, you slump back, panting from all the hard work.

Jake tosses it aside and braces himself to lean over you. "What a sight you've made of yourself." You see a flash of his perfect teeth before he bends his head. "Your skin stains beautifully."

His tongue drags hot and damp against your skin. He's diligent as he presses and pulls along the track marks. The attention laved over you makes you jerk and whimper. It feels-- well, it feels like any time a handsome man has put his tongue on you, but something is twisted. The sensual drag of his tongue feels utterly unlike the attention of a lover and more like a…

You flush all over, thinking of how you devoured the meadplum.

While a sidhe lord is licking you, it's easy to lose track of things, but before long you realize that you are not just flushed. Something under your skin is catching like kindling, and there is something wet and hot burning in you. It's drastically opposed to the heat of sunlight or the temperature of a summer day. Your blood is simmering to a nigh uncomfortable temperature, and you shift against the wooden seat, as if you could find some part of it not already warmed by your body, someplace to cool off.

Jake pulls back, licking his lip animatedly. "That was a delight and a half, pet."

"Welcome," you mutter darkly, and tug at your restraints again. They clench on you in return, making you gasp and forcing you still. "Fuck. This isn't some horseshit where you told me the skin was inedible but left out how the flesh was poisonous too, right? Because that'd be cheap."

The sidhe fucking laughs at you, and circles around your seat. He places a hand on the trunk of the overhanging tree and tilts his head at you like an animal. "An efficacy of speechcraft is not cheap, and it is a lesson learned at great expense to those who don't take care." He flashes his teeth at you. "But no, meadplum isn't poisonous. Quite the opposite. In fact…"

He bangs his fist on the trunk, and another one detaches itself and falls for him. Easily catching it, he tosses it between his hands. "I want to watch you eat another."

He slices it again for you, the same way. You can see the way it drips, and it's obscene. It would make a priest blush. "Can't-- christ, can't you just cut it into bites for me?"

"Where's the fun in that?" He leans over you, and pushes the new plum against you. For a moment, you try to turn away from it, but you're still hungry. You might even be more hungry than before, but more likely he's just whet your appetite into something sharper and meaner. You lick at the plum, and follow it as Jake pulls it away from you again. Once you let out a whimper, he shushes you and presses it against your mouth, as if intending to calm you.

Swiping up along the slice with the flat of your tongue, you swallow a mouthful of nectar. Then, pushing with just the tip, you urge it open further, enough to give you room to work. From the start, its packed too tightly to fully part, but as you flick your tongue and lick out small bits of it, the meadplum opens more easily, and you can plunge your tongue all the way in, nearly burying your nose in it alongside, the heady fermented smell filling you up.

This time, you finish the meadplum and slump like you just finished running a league. "Hot. Too hot," you moan. The heat in your body has grown hotter, and you pull and squirm. "It's too hot, I'm burning."

Your captor gives you a look of concern. "Oh no. What would you like me to do?"

Your skin is burning, and the princely regalia you're still wearing only traps in the heat. "Off, clothes," you manage. "Let me take them off."

"You lay right there, and I will take care of you," he says, and his little knife is back again. 

It slides against your clothes and parts them without so much as a stitch catching. He takes all of your finery to pieces, and begins pulling them away from your body, dropping them in a pile at his feet.

The chill of the forest insinuates against your skin, and you can't even mourn your clothes. The coolness makes gooseflesh spread over you, and you sigh. Now, perhaps, you are a little cold, but it's much preferable to the fever that had taken over you. As you're stripped to naught but your skin, the inferno seems to be under control again.

Before you can revel in the comfort, Jake says: "Another."

No, no, no, you don't want another. Your mouth is still full of the lingering intoxication of the fruit, and you fear what another will do to you.

"Please," you manage through a heavy haze, your mouth already watering at the thought of another.

"It's alright," the sidhe says with mock kindness, cutting another one for you. "I'm just getting it ready, here you go."

You shut your eyes. When you feel the fruit, you get to work, gorging yourself on another, just as before.

What a fucking sight you must make now. Maybe you were tidied up by Jake's ministrations before, but now you can feel the tackiness of your skin again as you eat without compunctions or willpower. Especially now that you're completely defrocked, and can feel a drip of nectar roll down your neck and start to pool in the hollow of your throat.

You open your eyes, half-lidded and distracted as you shove your tongue into hot wet warmth.

Next to you, the sidhe is naked, as all fae kind of tend to be. And you can see through the pelt of hair he's got going on that he's erect. He's enjoying watching you, his green eyes on your face, unblinking.

The wave of heat that hits comes before you even finish the meadplum. It's suffocating, like trying to inhale amid boiling water. Your focus on eating more and more snaps, and you jerk and arch your back, gasping, _sobbing_.

Your head hurts. God, it's throbbing. You want to press it against something, and try to bend your neck back enough to manage. Instead, you nearly choke.

"Easy, breathe." He touches you, pulling your head back up, gripping your hair to force you to hold still. There's dampness at the corners of your eyes. "You will breathe."

You breathe, shaking and groaning.

His other hand rubs over you, down your arm, tracing your ribs, the back of his fingers against your stomach. You hitch and moan, overwhelmed at the rough exploratory touches as they skate over the burning of your skin. Everything is so much, so many feelings colliding and struggling over each other, you don't know what's happening. It's like a man stroking a glowing piece of charcoal.

His thumb traces a straight line from your clavicle down; the tacky spread of nectar follows him all the way, until his hand closes securely around your dick and strokes.

Another fucking thing to handle. You can't. You are overfull already, with sticky damp fire and the biting chill and the reedy bindings around you and the throbbing in your head, and this. This is too much, and you stare up at the empty twilight over your head, needing… needing something to break, needing to be spared. 

But no one who falls into the clutches of faerie is spared.

At least the new tense fire of arousal starts to steal your attention. You stop writhing against the fire and start to cant your hips up into Jake's hand. It's a relief to let it build in you, almost a benediction from the rest of the world you're being subjected to. You can fuck his fist and moan and let it free you from the torment.

The hand in your hair loosens, and he pets you softly. The sensation prickles all the way down your spine. "Excellent work, you're an excellent work, Dirk, come on now. You'll be alright soon."

There's no choice but to come, moaning out to the open clearing as everything builds and breaks. It feels so good, so much _better_ and you're so fucking grateful for the helping hand. You're carried through, and slump against the seat when you're done.

Your skin prickles with some sensation you cannot give a name, but now you can handle it. It's a constant in your life, but you can survive it.

"Time for a bit of a break in the festivities," Jake says, and gives you a pat on the arm. It's chaste, almost amicable, though the avarice in his gaze hasn't been banked at all. "I'm off to make your presence known to the others, stretch my legs, then I'll be wassailin' back over here."

He's leaving. You feel a pang at that, and try again to free yourself. The restraints are still as solid as iron shackles, but move smoothly; a few more thin willow cords reach around you from either side, meeting across your chest and looping together into firm links. They hold you down around your shoulders, your ribs, your hips.

"I'll j-just wait here. Do some astral cart--cartography," you manage. Your voice keeps breaking. "Take your ti-time."

The sidhe sighs dreamily and strokes his fingers down your bicep. It feels good and thick somehow, and your eyes flutter shut. "Oh, you wouldn't thank me for that. I'll see you soon." Then, he puckers his lips in a blown kiss, and leaves you, disappearing beyond the clearing. 

You watch him go until the sharp white light of his crown has faded into the dusk.

Now, you are alone.

It is a rare occurrence. Looking back, your father's insistence on you always traveling with guards and protectors makes more sense. Putting the details together, it's not hard to see how the king hoped to avoid this situation by just applying brute force after you came of age.

As such, you have rarely been alone for the past year of your life. Did it start right after your birthday? You don't remember the details with that much granularity. But always people at your door as you sleep, always people shadowing you as you move through the kingdom, always an entourage when you travelled.

And now, here you are.

You idly lick your lips, checking for lingering nectar as you try to relax. Resting your head back against the bondage-happy foliage, you are treated to the bleeding gemstone colors casting up into darkness. They are so rich and vivid, it's less like the sun is nearby, eternally straddling the horizon line, and more like a fire is burning. You would be close enough to smell the smoke.

Which, technically, you can. But that is likely the bonfires around the faerie village. A shame; you'd like to see this place put to the torch.

As soon as you have the thought, you feel sick with shame. That's cruel, and uncalled for. The frisson of discomfort roiling through you, and you tense and shift around as if you could escape the feeling. 

Needing a distraction, you take the perilous step of trying to figure out what's wrong with you. Once you begin, it's hard to stop.

You feel like a container filling with sticky meadplum nectar. It's in your veins, pumping sluggishly with your pulse. That alone is exhausting, as if your heart is having to work so much harder just to keep your delicate internal mechanisms working. And the shiny paper packaging on that treat is that your skin is still similarly alight.

Now you can find where it’s localised and begin to take stock. The planes of your back, all the way down; your hips and down your legs like you've been encased in thick stockings; your shoulders, and flirting up the back of your neck; sweeping down the outside of your arms until it settles at the back of your hand.

Everywhere, the sensation simmers. Your blood is so hot, it's permeating outward, lighting up your skin with pinpricks of heat, overlapping rippling waves. Once every few seconds, some span of your body burns brighter, and you twitch against the feeling until it abates and you can calm again.

The blanket of queer sensations dominates your awareness as you lay there. Held down, you have little room to move, yet still struggle and try to grind your back against the tree. The small of your back and below aches, just like the throbbing in your head. You grit your teeth and let out tense breaths as you tremulously jerk backward, rubbing against the wood.

You can't look down at your arms. You can't see your legs. All you can do it stare up at the tree.

So many more heavy fruits are up there, weighing down the branches.

You're not hungry until you are ravenous. Before the thought consciously crosses your mind, you are reaching upward for the fruit.

You don't get far, and whine.

"Already?" Your sidhe lord returns to you, walking in from some angle you can't track. He stands at your feet, and you can barely see him put his hands on his hips. "Coming along well, I see."

"I'm fine, thank you," you manage through the fog of indiscriminate _want_ that's taken over you. "I could st-stand to be alone a while longer even."

His smile seems sweet and kindly. On anyone else, it might be genuine. 

He circles to the other side and rests his hand in your hair. Your head hurts, sore and aching, and you try to pull away. Jake just shushes you again and strokes his hand over your scalp.

His hand catches on something. Two somethings, situated above your hairline. When he touches them, you kick your heels and try to pull back, away from the intensity of the feeling. Whatever is there burns with every brush of his palm. "What are you-- st--stop," you yelp.

"Easy," he tells you, and finds both points with his fingers. His thumb and index finger encircle the _things_ and begin to squeeze. Rub. Massaging the skin around them.

The ache trips into something altogether different, and your head lolls as you groan. It feels amazing. It's like an itch finally being scratched after days of neglect, and more. The sticky heat in your blood rushes to the spot, rising to his hands, and the warmth doesn't hurt. The feeling is too strong to _hurt_ , it just _is._

Your being narrows down to the sidhe's hands rubbing your head. If you had the capacity to give a damn, you might be embarrassed by the way your lips are wide open, panting for air like an animal. That's beyond you for the moment.

"Better?" Jake says, sounding smug.

"Yesss." You moan and lean your head back, further into his hands.

"You're an intoxicating sight to see like this," he says quietly. "Here. Give me your hand."

You have nothing to do with it. He takes your wrist, and pulls. The bindings around you loosen enough for him to pull your arm upward. He opens your fingers gently, then presses them to your head.

Now, you can feel it. There is a round protrusion coming out of your skull. It's round, a parting of your skin and hair where something alien and foreign is coming out. While your mind screeches _no no no no_ in a terrified voice, you are exploring it best you can. The break in your skin doesn't hurt, but the area is desperately sensitive. Like a wound or bruise, the urge to push against it and dig in is tremendous.

But the actual thing coming out is… soft, felted. When you nudge it, there's no real feeling, but for how the area around it reacts. 

Jerking your hand out of Jake's grip, you find a matching one a few inches away, mirroring its fellow on the other side of your head.

Shit. Shit, shit shit shit. You know what they are.

Jake forces your arm to bend, replacing it into the binding. "Now then," he says calmly, as if he's not wrestling a human back into bondage, the fucker. "Ready for another?"

"Fuck you," you spit, and try to scratch him with your fingernails.

He doesn't even give sign of noticing. Instead, he pulls a meadplum from the tree. "This one looks a treat."

"I won't eat it," you tell him. Your blood boils in anger, but you keep your eyes fixed unblinking on him in defiance.

Jake lifts his eyebrows at you, seeming surprised. "Well," he begins slowly. "Alright."

Holding it in his hands, he breaks it open. Rivlets of glimmering blood green run down his hands, down his arms, dripping from the point of his elbow to the frosted earth below. As you watch, he works it open wide and starts to eat it himself, mouth slick, bites almost grateful or reverent.

It's torture. With every passing second, more of the meadplum disappears down his throat, and you yank and pull at your bonds in fury.

When you break, it's a torrent: "Please, please, I need it, please, I'm hungry, I can't-- can't think, please--" You're starving. You might die if he doesn't let you eat.

He does. The meadplum is like a wet paste as he swipes his fingers through it. You lick each one clean, relief a flood as the taste and smell hit you. He hollows the skin out, and urges you to open your mouth for him. When you do, he strokes his fingers over your tongue. Groaning, you suck and lick at them, only letting go when you've managed to get every drip of nectar and bite of plum flesh.

As you diligently work, Jake runs the back of his fingers over your arms. It's nice. The touch feels soft and lush; he drags his fingertips over your skin, and it pulls strangely. The pricking painful heat is coming back, but for the moment, things are nice, and you want to clutch to the moment of respite.

It doesn't last very long. The next wave comes in, and you jerk your head away from him so you don't accidentally bite him. You gasp and gasp and gasp, nearly hyperventilating as your whole _body_ begins to ache like a healing break.

The throbbing is deeper this time, or it has just become so omnipresent you can no longer tell where it’s coming from beyond 'everywhere.' A steady drumming is radiating out of your bones, as if they were hollow percussion. The rhythm is steady, is constant, and is like a heartbeat.

Not yours, though. Yours is racing as you writhe and shake through the latest round of this agony.

It seems to go on forever. The only thing beyond the hot sensation drenching your body is hands in your hair. His thumbs press on the antlers as they grow, stroking with delicious hard pressure up to the tip, then back down to start again. It's your port in the storm, and you lean up as far as you can to get more.

Clinging to the feeling of his hands on you, the pain is a little easier. You make it through.

When you can think enough to be yourself again instead of a mote of desperation in a sea of overwhelming tacky heat, the heartbeat is still there. Your own has slowed to match it, but you can still tell they are different. It's not yours that's playing in your bones and sore muscles.

You have a decent guess whose it is.

Another thing: you aren't so cold. The chill of the forest has been almost a balm against the heat, but now the sting has abated. Gooseflesh has settled and vanished, and you are almost cozily warm despite the eternal twilight. Somehow, you are nearly impervious.

Blinking, you look around languidly.

The sidhe is paying attention to you, but to your legs. His hands feel enormous as he pets your thighs. His nails drag against your skin, igniting a bright vivid tremble in you as he strokes down to your knee, then stops. He strokes back up, against the grain.

Against the grain has meaning, but you can barely think in a straight line. The fact he's petting you is so good, you'll take it without question. After everything else, it’s like he's containing the aching for you, letting you catch your breath and rest.

"Look at that," he murmurs, seemingly to himself. "You're a beautiful pet."

"'ve heard beauty s'pain but this is somethin' else," you say, marble mouthed and exhausted. More than anything, you want to sleep now. Actually being unconscious instead of simply untethered from your body through pain and heat sounds amazing.

Jake's hands leave you, and you whine. "Still so feisty! We're nearly done, I promise. But for this part, I need you to get up. Are you capable of such malarkey, or have you been turned to plum mush yourself?"

He raps his knuckles on the tree, and all of the reeds wrapped around you loosen and release you. Each one tidily sweeps across your skin and away.

For the first time since the faeries caught you, you're free.

Whether you can manage to stand is an entirely different story. Pushing yourself up, your arms shake like a kite in a gust, and your breathing picks swiftly up. Jake steps back, giving you space.

He's watching you. And you don't think because he's nervous you'll make a run for it.

You get mostly upright, then slide your feet to the ground. Draped awkwardly over the tree, it's hard to get your footing.

Moving forward requires some bravery. You push off the tree.

Immediately, without so much as a stumble or a hint of standing, you fall. Knees bend like hinges, and you land solidly on your ass in the grass barely a foot from your prior seat.

Jake chortles above you. For the moment, you ignore him. There are more pressing matters to attend to than the smug sidhe.

Hands first. FInally, you can look at your own hands and see what has been done to them. The shape is the same, but your fingernails have turned a glossy dark color, as if lacquered. Over the back of your hand is…

You stroke your skin. It's soft in a rich way. From the back of your hands, up your arms, to your shoulder, you have a coating of golden brown-- fur. It's fur, short but lush when you touch it, and warm. Explains why the chill isn't getting to you.

You begin to follow the path of the fur, over your shoulders, gripping your shoulder blades before you abruptly remember and whip your hands up to your head.

The antlers have grown dramatically since the small nubs you touched before. Hands bumping into them, you find they extend out from your skull a fair ways now, still one complete curved horn each. Each has a bump halfway up, and you rub at it in confusion.

Which… feels very good. You shut your eyes and just squeeze them for a moment, pulling each through your fists a few times.

Your breath hitches; you have to move on, now. It's too easy to get distracted like this.

Legs. You still have them. That'd be an easy mistake to make, though; they barely feel like your legs. Like all of your sinews have been rewoven and bones have been replaced, they feel tight and undeniably fucking _weird_ as you reach down and touch them. 

You aren't sure why your arms don't have the same uncanny feeling to them. After all, the brown fur is here too, thicker as it passes your hips. It's funny, given you've never really been a hairy guy before. But as you idly drag your fingertips against the grain of the fur, this doesn't feel like that anyway. It's like petting imperial velvet. But warmer. Near your pelvic bone and between your legs, it comes much thicker.

A hand on your antler directs your head back and up, stopping you before you can explore further.

Jake smiles down at you. "Hello, fawn. What say you?"

In his free hand is a meadplum, proffered. 

Every inch of your body sings _yes_.

You snatch it from him, too ravenous for politesse. Now you can truly feel the heft of it in your hands. It seems too heavy, like you might find a granite stone in its heart. But by now you know better.

And finally, you can open it yourself. Pushing your nails in, it resists you for just a moment, then splits.

To hell with your sidhe and his games. Now you part the fruit as much as you want before bowing your head and taking a full _bite_ , with teeth. The plumflesh is a mouthful that you drag your tongue through, enjoying the decadent sticky density of it. So much of it becomes too difficult to swallow and you have to slow down, take your time with it, even as the inside of the meadplum gleams wet and inviting in your cupped hands.

The hunger that's consumed you is finally being curtailed. In its absence, you feel sad. You miss it already, this feast of strange fae fruit. Whatever will take its place, you don't know.

As you lap at the skin of the meadplum to catch every drop of nectar, the sidhe steps around you and lowers to the grass with you. He says something in a low, cloying voice, but you don't care. You are too focused on your fruit to give a shit what he has to say. Likely more arrogant literalisms.

Thus, you miss the warning before he shoves you forward. The plum tumbles from your grasp and you scramble after it, laying over your elbows and just managing to clap a hand on it before it rolls out of your reach.

You drag it back to you. Behind, Jake strokes your flanks with wide-splayed hands. "Pay me no mind, fawn."

As you bury your mouth into the fruit, Jake grasps tight hold of-- of something right over your ass, something a part of you, a soft yielding thing he gives a firm squeeze. You realize it's your tail when Jake uses it to haul you up enough to shove his dick in you with one long demanding thrust.

The fruit is gone too soon, and its distraction with it. You drag your tongue over your fingers, against the fur where nectar has collected, cleaning up every drop as the fae king keeps your tail in his tight fist and his hand on your hip. He holds you secure for every one of his rough thrusts, opening you up as easily and willingly as you opened up the last fruit.

The heat comes. Your heart beats faster, rising to match his as he pounds into you harder and harder. His force is enough to send you almost sliding over the ground, so you dig your hands into the grass and hold on as he moves in again and again and _again_. This, being fucked like this, has never been this simple before, and it's almost a new fever coming over you. 

Panting, you dig your fingers in your hair, only to bump against one of your antlers. Letting out a tense sob, you grab it, needing something to hold onto.

Your blood nearly boils. The needles of heat begin to run through you, and your voice cracks into staccato, sharp cries. He fucks you like he's an animal, like _you're_ an animal, and your body burns like liquid fire. You head throbs, and your feel it as your antler grows. It stretches and pulls against your grasp, lifting higher. Frantic, you trace it, trying to learn this shape that is part of your body, and as you do, you feel the knot from before split. It expands, and soon you have a respectable curve with a little fork in each one.

You hold onto it, clenching overly tight. Your skin burns, but your legs _tremble_ with the force of the ache that's running through them. It hurts, but the sidhe keeps at you, unrelenting, and you moan through the excess of sensations.

The pain keeps rising, until you are whimpering more from pain than shocks of pleasure.

That is when, serendipitously, you hear a _thud_ nearby. Lifting your head, you blink away tears, and spot a meadplum resting in the grass nearby.

Whipping your hand out, you haul it in, and break the skin with your teeth before using a dark-nailed finger to open it, and you glut yourself with it.

What you hoped was that you could drown it all out if you could just eat this, that the satisfaction of wine-sweet fruit and honey stickiness would make the rest bearable. But the meadplum doesn't consume you like you do it.

The aches and changes in your body are extravagant and ever-present. Your legs feel apart from you, the throbbing so intense it's practically a vibration of a tuning fork. You try to curl your toes with the hot punch of pleasure wrung from your body with every thrust of Jake's cock inside you, but you can't. You can feel your legs. You cannot do anything with them. Not now.

It's all at once. It's a deluge. You might be dying, you feel _everything_ with totality. There is no room in you for anything else, and the king collides your bodies together all the while.

You break and reform over and over, and lick blood green from your mouth and moan into the twilight. The sidhe noses against the lush expanse of fur across your back, and fucks you all the way through it. Maybe to spare you some of the pain. But probably not, you think, as he pulls his pleasure from your body until he comes.

Like each time before, the wet heat takes hold, and then it lets you go, draining from your body slowly.

It leaves your shores, and you lay curled in the grass, your eyes closed, an arm crooked and tucked under your head.

You are warm, and given what you have gone through in the past few… hours? Probably hours. Given that, you are comfortable. Exhaustion is in your muscles like an unwanted guest in your body, but you hum drowsily and feel your tail twitch and flick with contentment.

Tail. You go through the monumental effort to reach behind you and pat the area. It's a little sore, given how the king fucked you. Wincing, you pat around until you find the tail, your tail, over your ass.

It's short, but the fur is thick enough you can sink your fingers fairly deep, and stroke. Oh, that feels fucking great, and you stretch your legs.

They feel weird. Fine.

Much aggrieved, you force yourself to sit up. It's difficult to uncurl from your cozy spot and get yourself propped up, but you manage step by step.

Looking down, your legs have changed. The long gangly things you once walked on are gone, transformed into a wide, furred flank that bends into a narrow leg. 

You have hooves. You have the anatomy of a young deer.

Going back to your dozing is impossible. Curiosity and a low simmering worry take control, and you need to see. Luckily, the trunk of the meadplum tree is nearby, and it is availing to your plight. You find handholds and brace points, and drag yourself upright.

Balancing on your new, smaller feet is hard. You wrap your arms around the tree and lift your foot and tap it a few inches away, then back under you as you feel too unsteady to stand.

There's no footsteps, no sound before Jake's voice catches your attention. You swear he wasn't there two minutes ago, but now you hear a pleased hum, and look up at the king with his crown of light.

His grin is curved like his little silver knife. "You were already a feast for the eyes, fawn. Now…" He trails off with a suggestive once-over of your body. "It suits you terribly well, I'm afraid. A perfect fit, I daresay."

"Unless I want to walk," you grouse. Your new legs hurt from their newness. Forgiving yourself, you let yourself sink to sit again, leaning back against the tree.

"Don't you fret your pretty head none. It won't be immediate, but I promise we will make a runner of you yet."

Faerie promises are a rarity on verge of being a miracle. You turn your wide eyes up to him. "A runner?"

"Oh, did I not mention?" He beams, and even after all this time you still see hunger in his eyes. "I'm not just any old king. I'm King of the Hunt. And you are its newest quarry. Welcome, fawn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **chapter content:** corruption, transformation, varying degrees of forced eating, loss of humanity, gain of fealty, faerie shenanigans, and Arcturus is fully back on her bullshit.
> 
> This badly needed a readthrough but unfortunately the truth about doing daily updates of a fic is that you can't create something as polished as you would otherwise like. I hope it's enjoyable despite the flaws.


	13. 13 October - let's discuss an antiquated meme from the ancient internet (Petplay)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuck the dream in the last chapter, I want to write about longcat.

It's warm.

Your eyes are closed, and you leave them that way for the moment. The carpet below you is thick and soft, and you practically sink into it. Your skin is warm. In fact, you're warm all the way through without tipping over to too hot. There's a brightness on your face that even through closed eyes you can tell is sunlight.

The feeling is luxurious and enticing. You're tempted to stay right here and absorb the warm and softness, even if it means continuing to lie on the floor. But wakefulness has come to nibble at your mind, and Jake is making noise nearby, clattering around. Your ears turn to track his movements even as you stretch your arms over your head to try and work some of the sleepiness out of your body.

… Wait a second.

You open your eyes.

The first thing you see are your arms, because your head was pillowed on them moments ago. For a second, you think you've stumbled yourself back into yesterday, when Jake used your toys to build a fawn in your sandbox, because your arms are covered in luxurious golden hair.

But you touch it, and the texture is different, finer, and the color is more dappled cream and golden brown than it is deer. Preemptively mourning the loss of the warm carpet soaking into your bones, you move to sit up —

You move to sit up and your neck fucking jingles.

Immediately you slap a hand to the sound and stifle it under your palm. It's… a bell, you think, rolling the slatted ball between your fingers. It's attached to a collar not too dissimilar from the ones you've worn for play before, though it's decidedly less smooth leather and much more… synthetic. You can barely feel it around your neck, which you attribute a moment later to the fact that your neck is also covered in soft fur.

…As is the rest of your naked body. Your tail lashes and flicks around to curl across your legs, and, okay. Touching your hair reveals a pair of pointy, delicate ears.

You're a cat. Half a cat. Alright. Time to find Jake and make him explain.

As it turns out, Jake is just around the corner, decked out again in his frilly shorts and fancy hat. The twigs of berries have grown since last time, leaving them ripe and hanging heavy from the brim.

"I didn't realize the cat person joke was going to be a two-time thing," you say dryly.

Jake spins around and beams at you. "Hello there, my pretty pet!" he coos. "Had a good nap?"

You fold your arms across your chest and raise an eyebrow at him.

He clicks his tongue. "Hmm, no? You've woken up grumpy, huh? That's too bad."

Too set on disrupting whatever setting he's trying to construct here, you don't register the danger as he takes a couple steps towards you.

"Well, I can see clear enough you've twisted yourself up in a knot," he says. "You're prancing around on your hind legs like your head's flipped round and got you thinking you're a person! But don't fret, I've got a fix for that."

He draws a wand from seemingly thin air, pale wood and gnarled edges, one green leaf still growing off of it. You try to take a step back, open your mouth to protest, but he baps you on the head with it, right between the ears.

Gravity becomes unbearably strong. It bears down on you with crushing force until you drop to your knees and place your hands on the floor.

"Much better," Jake pronounces. He reaches up and plucks a berry, pops it into his mouth and chews thoughtfully. "Now then. I think I'll have some lunch, it's right about that time, isn't it, Calico?"

 _"Calico?"_ you say, imbuing your tone with scorn.

Jake huffs. "Now, see here." He wiggles his wand menacingly. Or, well, more cutely than anything, but the theory is solid. "When's the last time you met a cat that talked, hm?"

You're about to say something smart about the sprites who occasionally haunt your lives and cause chaos, but Jake waves his wand in a figure eight, and… the words don't come. They die in your throat, and the best you can produce is a hum that veers dangerously close to a cat-like noise.

"There we are," Jake says, looking incredibly pleased with himself. "Will you purr for me, pretty kitty?"

You scowl at him silently.

"Well, maybe later," Jake concedes. "Come along, then. If it's lunchtime for me then that means it's about time for you, hm? Are you hungry, pet?"

He keeps using this cooing voice, the kind best reserved for babies and domestic animals. It's grating.

"Just going to fix something up for myself, and then we'll get something for you to fill that hungry tummy with, don't you fret." He draws his wand again as he wanders over to the kitchen. You follow him, shuffling along on your hands and knees. It's hard to keep your head craned up to watch him. Makes your neck start to twinge.

Jake spins around in a circle, twirling his wand just so, and colorful swirls of light chase him around, circling round and round until they finally settle into his cupped palms. The lights spark and shiver for a moment as if resisting him, before they finally settle into docility and leave him holding a painted ceramic bowl, slightly lumpy and misshapen, but deep.

"Here we are," he says cheerfully. He hops along to the table, a roughly-hewn wooden slab on sturdy legs, then looks back coyly over his shoulder. "Calico," he calls. "Time for food!"

To add insult to injury, he makes kissy noises at you. The disgruntled sigh you try to make turns itself into a displeased _mroooop_ sound.

Despite your obligatory fussing, you do follow him, and settle back on your heels beside his chair. You've been handfed by him before while trussed up in a similar pose, and you look up at him inquiringly.

Jake, who was stirring whatever witch's brew he had conjured up in his bowl with his wand, grins. He shakes his head and laughs lightly. "No, silly thing, not for you. Kitties don't get people food! It's bad for you. Come on, under the table you go, I'll fix you up in just two shakes of your whiskers."

Whiskers. Do you have whiskers? You crawl under the table and pat your face with one hand. Christ. Yes. You do have whiskers, long slender things that make your whole body shiver from sensitivity. You drop your hand back to your lap and shake your head, trying to dislodge the phantom prickling on your face.

Jake scoots his chair in closer to the table and nudges you with one of his bare feet. He feels around with it and then captures your tail under his toes. You yank it away immediately and smack him with it.

"Such a sweet thing," Jake croons. "Such a soft pretty tail for my soft pretty pussycat."

You can actually feel your ears fold back against your head in irritation. "God fucking damn you, English!" you say. "You've thought up a lot of ridiculous shit, but this really takes the fucking cake, you know that?" You hit him with your tail again as it lashes in annoyance. "I've put up with all kinds of shit because you thought it was hot, but wow, I really should have learned to draw the line before you came up with this."

Of course, Jake is just giggling madly, because instead of words, you're making sounds like _mrrr mraow miaaah mrrrrrt!_ instead of nice intelligible human words. Fuck you sideways and upside down. Christ. You shut your mouth before you embarrass yourself further.

"What a talkative little thing you are, Calico," he says brightly. "C'mere, kitty." He pats his thigh and makes more undignified kissy noises to lure you in. "Don't you want some lunch?"

Like the pathetic idiot you are, you scoot in closer and let him tuck you between his knees until the ruffly hems of his shorts tickle your whiskers to hell and back. You shake your head to try and arrange them where they won't be bumped constantly, and you keep your ears pressed back, thank you very much, because you have some self respect and you'd like Jake to appreciate that.

He immediately sticks a hand in your hair and crooks his fingers behind your ear and, oh, _bliss._ You immediately forget why you were so pissed and let him coax your ears back to a relaxed position with the best damn head massage you've ever had. The bases of your ears are so sensitive, and having them rubbed sends dizzying trails of bliss down your spine. Your back arches reflexively, and you can almost feel how amazing his fingers would feel rubbing down your spine like this.

It takes longer than it should have for you to register the weird rumbling sound as emanating from your own throat. Huh. You touch your fingers to your throat to feel the vibration as your eyes grow heavy from Jake's continued ministrations. God, but this is like a shot of pure sleepiness to the brain.

It's impossible to stay annoyed. You lean more heavily into his leg, let your head droop forward to give him better access. He rubs up the full length of your ear, massaging the delicate skin and flicking his fingers through the hairs that protect your inner ear.

That tickles a lot, and you twitch your ear repeatedly, hoping he can take a hint for once in his life. Jake makes a pleased noise and you hear him set down — something, a spoon probably, clattering against the bowl.

And.

And knowing that he's finally begun playing at ignoring you, treating you like an actual pet, something soft but inconsequential, no more than a mildly enjoyable distraction… That kind of gets you.

It's a weird mix of a feeling, not quite arousal, not quite embarrassment. A shameful sort of pleasure, difficult to admit to. Especially when Jake stops doing weird things to your brain with his fingers on your ear and just carries on eating his soup or stew or slop, whatever it is. Smells good, though. Meaty and salty and filling. Maybe you are hungry, actually. Should just wake up from this mess of a dream and grab a snack.

But you don't wake. The dream stays sturdily built and vivid around you, no paint peeling from the corners.

You don't know what you're supposed to be doing. Besides being a cat. Being Jake's pet. But cats just do as they please, don't they? The last interaction you had with a cat included having your head sat on as if it were a comfortable cushion, so that sounds right to you.

Alright. Time to do as you please. In a catlike manner.

You shove your nose in hard against Jake's leg and contemplate biting it. That would get his attention. His hand falls from your hair and you try to nab it between your lips, but he's too quick for you.

Jake, being himself even when in a fancy hat, just chuckles. "I take it you're hungry after all, then?" he asks. "Don't you worry. I've set aside some cream that's sure to satisfy even the most ravenous of kitties."

You make a disgruntled _mew_ at his phrasing, but let him push you back on your heels again so he can — pop open a button and reach into his fly to pull out his dick. It rests unassuming against his thigh, a telltale pink flush threatening to plump it up.

You look up at him. Jake beams widely and picks up his spoon again. He scoots closer to the edge of the chair and, yeah. You're doing this, huh.

Licking your lips is a reflexively, unintentional gesture. You cautiously lean in, brace your arms against the chair legs. He rewards you with a hand in your hair, just stroking gently, not dizzying your brain quite so much.

This won't be a chore, you figure. It never is, not with the familiar weight and heft of Jake weighing down your tongue. You wind your tail around your knees absentmindedly and lean the rest of the way in until you can rub your lips against the smooth, warm skin of his dick.

Jake hums around his next mouthful when you start helping him along to hardness with kitten licks around his head, toying with his foreskin before dragging your tongue down to the base.

Then you briefly panic and lick your own lips to determine if Jake gave you a cat's rough tongue. It seems normal to you, and his dick isn't complaining, so you silently breathe a sigh of relief and bend back in to give him a slow suck.

This is easy. It's familiar ground, and easy to lose yourself into. Is this a dumb setup? Sure. But you still can enjoy Jake's enjoyment, you suppose. And, fine, you'll take any excuse to go down on him. So sue you.

And it's easy to sink into. You can close your eyes and concentrate on doing a good job, on making Jake feel good, on how his hand in your hair tightens when you suck. It's the kind of simple that lets your brain zero in on the task. It helps. Even if the stupid bell on your collar does jingle obnoxiously every time you bob your head.

It probably says a lot about you that the thing that makes the whole situation seem a lot less weird to you is having a dick in your mouth, but hey. Everyone's got a few quirks.

After a few minutes, Jake begins rubbing behind your ear again, crooking his fingers and dragging his nails against your scalp. You have a half-second and thinking that you need to remember to tell Jake to trim his nails in the morning before the dopamine hits and you also want to moan in delight at the sensation. Well, you don't know if it's dopamine. You don't know enough about the human brain or more particularly the cat brain to say for sure.

But god, it feels good.

You suck harder at Jake to encourage him to continue, curl your tongue against his shaft and draw him deeper into your throat. He digs his fingers in more and it's better, like a wave of chills rolling down your skin and leaving your eyes heavy lidded with relaxation.

Honestly, it makes it easier to relax your throat, too. You swallow around Jake and hum. This really isn't so bad. You wouldn't even mind doing this again, maybe, if he keeps doing that awesome thing with his nails and the base of one ear that makes you go all shivery and warm.

You hum more to convey this to Jake, let him know that you're thoroughly enjoying yourself now that he's discovered a smooth highway right to your brain's pleasure receptors, because apparently cats store those right next to their funny triangle ears. His hips hitch into your mouth as you hum, breaking your rhythm for a moment.

Well, that's fine. You can just keep humming, keep making it good for him. In fact, you can breathe through the hum. No need to pause and break your rhythm or concentration. It feels like your throat takes over for you, actually, lets you do the sucking work while it takes over the vibrations.

"What a sweet kitten you are," Jake says, voice surprisingly rough. You blink and twitch an ear against his hand in acknowledgement. "So keen to purr for me, aren't you?"

Are you purring? That's weird, kind of. You guess it makes sense that you'd get that particular skill, though last you checked it was only smaller members of the cat family that could purr, and you're none too small. On the other hand, to be fair, you suppose roaring wouldn't be the hottest skill.

You just take Jake all the way into your throat when you next bob your head down and listen to him groan. That's nice. You'll put up with making involuntarily noises of enjoyment if he gets off on it, sure. You do that all the time, frankly.

It's not too much longer before he comes, jerking his hips up jarringly hard into your mouth before going still. "There you are," he says, voice still low and throatier. "Drink up, Calico."

You swallow, and he pets your hair.

"Good," he murmurs. "My good kitten."

He's still petting you, so you just let yourself relax, drop your arms from bracing against the chair for leverage and slump against his leg. He arranges you to lean your head against his thigh and digs his fingers into your hair, combs through it. It still feels amazing, and you're vaguely aware that you're still making an embarrassing rumbly vibration in your throat.

But it's nice. It's… it's good, to be treated like a precious thing, like something delicate and helpless Jake has promised to take care of. It feels good, and he wants you to feel that, you think, so it's okay that you do.

It's just fine for you to shut your eyes and enjoy the warmth of his legs, to sit at his feet and be caressed and cared for. You can close your eyes and sink into the feeling and don't have to feel any guilt for feeling content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extended tags: petplay, the return of cat!dirk, catboy, d/s, subspace
> 
> title and chapter summary are, of course, a reference to sonnetstuck's [Detective Pony](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2427119/), with an honorable mention to the amazing podfic version from NakedBee and Duckface for permanently putting the sound of dirk strider rambling about memes in my head.


	14. 14 October - on the edge of 0b10001 (Brobot)

The only reason you know you're asleep is the way everything starts. It's immediate, and you begin mid-step, walking next to Jake through an overgrown pumpkin patch, deep in the jungle.

It's familiar; you know the island by the salt-scented humidity alone. But this area in of itself is new to you.

Ahead, there is a large white globe sitting on a little tower, like an oversized golf ball situated on the pick thing they use in the sport. The light here is remarkably picturesque, streaming in through the gaps in the trees, leaving most of the place in relative darkness with just vivid beams of light.

"Hey," you say quietly. "It's your old house."

"It certainly is! Strange to see it like this again." He kneels in the grass and puts his hands on a massive pumpkin, tipping it back to look at it.

The place where Jake lived alone for much of his life. Standing there is a little awkward, like you're intruding. Even if, in the future, it’s half your island too, goddammit. "Then what's the scenario here? Nostalgic frolic through the overgrown gourd garden?"

Jake plops back on his ass and drums his hands on the pumpkin. "Hm… No, I don't think so. I think this is just the best environment to meet with an old chum."

 _Old chum_ reminds you of that heart splinter Jake's presumably still carting around in his brain. You stiffen, unsure if you're up for another rendezvous with him so soon.

Jake peers around, squinting into the trees around you. "Dunno where he's hiding. It's vexing, how he can just become like the shadows themselves and creep around. It's not very nice!" This, he calls out, cupping a hand around his mouth. "Come say hello already!"

There's silence again in the clearing.

"Rain check?" you ask, a little hopeful.

"No, no. Hey, do me a favor and point your sword at me."

"Really?" When Jake nods, you shrug. "Fine." Taking it in hand, you point the tip of your katana in Jake's general direction.

And for your trouble, you get hit by a fucking truck.

Part of it is that life on Earth C has left you with long stretching years without fighting. You and Jake scrum and wrestle and sometimes pitch death machines against each other for kicks, but you haven't really _fought_ anyone since the Game.

And part of it is the fact you are asleep and dreaming, and reaction times are a thing.

You are thrown twenty feet away from Jake, and into the dirt and through one of the pumpkins, smashing it to chunks of orange pulp. Swinging out a leg, you roll to stand, hands spaced out, knees bent.

Turning, you face down another copy of yourself, this one metal with red glowing shades, holding a sword in its metallic mitts.

Its uniquely weird, to see yourself at thirteen, immortalized in slate metal. You're a little shorter, and the slope of your shoulders makes you look like someone built you out of pipecleaners.

The red glasses make you instinctively reach up to touch yours; less pointy these days, and less opaque.

Man. You were so young once.

Behind the Brobot, Jake claps his hands like a spectator at a show. "There my automatonic guardian is! Hello, you steely-eyed swordman!" He leans forward on his chosen pumpkin and rests his chin in his hand, grinning. "Let's say you and he fight."

The Brobot nods while you put your arms up. "Hang on a fucking minute. What? Why?"

Jake shrugs. "Been curious forever about it, to be honest. All the time I had him, I tried to keep him on the Novice Setting because any other mode was just impossible for me to handle. Having his esteemed creator have a full blown blitz with him would be a treat for me."

While you're looking at Jake, the robot flashsteps into range and hurls a fist at you.

You fling your arm up to deflect and duck simultaneously. Kicking off, momentum carries you around the Brobot, and you step back again, creating space.

The Brobot matches you, backing off as well and sidling in a circle. You mirror him, keeping distance. It's really wigging you out that he's shorter than you.

That's its own advantage. Next move, he hurls himself at you, clearly aiming for your hips, meaning to knock you back into the dirt.

You leap, and use his head as a platform. Foot to back of roboskull, you dive past him, and land in a crouch before spinning again.

The Brobot winds up in the dirt himself, metal head half-embedded. He shoves a pumpkin out of the way before springing back to his feet.

Jake's still staring, but there's something tense around his eyes. "Dirk…"

You and the robot both tilt your heads toward Jake.

You notice first, but then, you don't react to this revelation with violence. In another blur of movement, the Brobot comes at you, fist pulled back and ready. Knocking that one aside the same way, you get another, as the Brobot isn't one to repeat combat errors. You catch that one with your palm and pitch is aside, slamming your shoulder into the robot to make him stagger back.

He flickers and vanishes. Shit. You throw yourself forward and turn, looking.

Just in time to block a drop kick from height. You grab the metal leg with both hands and twist, sending the Brobot into the ground.

He kicks you in the ankle, and you let it leave the ground, keeping upright by floating.

This apparently was not anticipated. The Brobot stills, scanning you.

"What," you say dryly. "You're the only one allowed to fly here?"

For that, you get grabbed by your shoulder and thrown, swung out like a flung pillow. It's harmless, and you drag yourself to a stop with just a whisper of will.

The Brobot bends his knees, and red flares in his boots as the rockets kick on. The rumble fills the clearing before the metal boy blasts off right at you.

Getting your feet back on the ground, you brace yourself. Attack, riposte. You duck under the robot at the last second, and slam your arms up into his legs.

The impact of the Brobot into the dirt behind you is intense. Turning, you spot him laying there, again half-buried. His fists pound against the earth, as if angry.

"Okay, pack it up already, that's enough!" a voice cuts through the clearing. It's a familiar voice, one that's embossed on your soul, but not one you've heard in…

In years.

You turn, and see Jake in the middle of the pumpkin patch. He sits on top of one of the larger gourds, glaring across at the both of you. His pout is pronounced. His glasses have a narrow hairline crack in the nose of the frame, and he's lucky that's the only damage, honestly. He's wearing a short jacket, a tee with a green skull on it, and cargo shorts. His shoes are old and have been repaired before.

He drops the pout and looks down at his knee, and starts picking at the bandaid there. His face pinches into a little wince as he plucks at it.

Jake English, the boy you've loved since before you had a name for the feeling. He looks sixteen again, stripped of height and bulk, with more roundness in his cheeks.

You know him immediately. It's how he looked the day you finally met him face to face. And, by extension, the last day the Brobot saw him.

Now, _finally_ , you feel like someone's punched you.

You take a step towards Jake, as if drawn in by gravity itself. And it takes a distraction like Jake young and tousled haired and perfect to finally get the drop on you.

The Brobot lands a kick right on your ass, making you stumble to your knees, nearly smashing another pumpkin. As you recover, he flashsteps to Jake's side.

Jake tips his head back to look up at him. The Brobot stands there, arms solid and unmoving at his sides, and stares back, unmoving. Slowly, Jake reaches out and puts his hand over the robot's. Still, he doesn't move until you do; pivoting on his heel, he places himself between you and Jake like a bulwark.

You feel like an outsider as you join them. You're a giant, you're ancient, and they'll crumble if you aren't careful, like you don't know your strength. They're delicate, back then. Even you, even a metal version of you sworn to protect Jake from monsters.

When you're close, the Brobot shifts his stance. The last thing you want is another scrum right now, and you freeze, keeping back.

"Oh, stop that." Jake tugs at his arm. "Brobot, don't. He's no more a threat than you are, you old tin can." Keeping hold, Jake stands up, bracing on the robot.

The robot looks down at Jake's hand on his arm, and you can almost hear the ones and zeroes flicking in his fiber optic brain. But he doesn't move. His arms are heavy straight weights at his sides, even as Jake rubs his thumb against his wrist. There's something entreating in Jake's face, heightened by that softness, back before he knew how to ask for anything. His teeth press down on his lip, and he lets go of Brobot slowly.

As he does, the robot looks back up at his face, impassive and frightened.

Or, no. You're just projecting, and that's not fair. There's already so much you put onto his shoulders, it's unfair to lump more on. Protecting Jake, making him happy, preparing him for a dark future, and being there for him in the way you never could.

You swallow, your throat tight.

Looking to Jake, you find him already waiting for your gaze. He looks lost and a little frustrated, his hand lifting again to touch Brobot only to fall again. "M'not sure… What the most advantageous tactic for this might be, if you don't mind me laying it out for you."

He wants direction. As if you know better.

"Did you ever try?" you ask him softly.

"Erm, no, not as such. Never got up the nerve. Don't act surprised, Strider." He scuffs the toe of his shoe and runs a hand through his hair. It's impossible to tell how much is affectation and how much is the sheer might of Hope making it realer.

Though, for once, you don't know if this is a Hope thing. It might be the other one.

Brobot is aware of you, even if he keeps staring at Jake. You know he's frightened, because you made him of yourself and when you were 10 then 13 then 16, you were frightened all the time. It was a shadow living on your heels, everywhere you went. You needed a new universe and a new sun before it even began to abate.

Did you program him to be frightened? You don't remember. Scared for Jake, to keep him safe. Scared of Jake, what he could do to your tender adolescent feelings.

Yeah, this is on you. "This is my fault," you tell both of them quietly. "So I'll try to fix it."

You catch Jake's eyes again and nod to Brobot.

That is apparently all that was holding Jake back; he steps closer, until he and the robot are toe to metallic toe, and slides his arms around the hard unyielding torso. Behind Brobot, his hand grips his wrist, completing the circle.

It's funny, how small Brobot seems to you, but how perfectly proportioned he is with Jake. They fit together.

Your eyes sting. "Okay. Let's take this a step at a time," you say, then grab one of Brobot's limp, hanging arms by the wrist. "I didn't teach you this part. Probably 'cause I didn't know it myself." You lift and pull, surprised when the robot doesn't resist you. Directing him, you put his hand on Jake's back, over the boy's spine.

Jake lets out a happy sigh and presses his cheek to Brobot's chest. The way his shoulders move, he might be doing that thing he used to do, when he hugged you, then tried to lift you off the floor with a tighter hug. It wouldn't work on a metal copy of yourself, but the gesture is still nice.

Brobot looks towards you. There is only one expression on his face, forever a smooth mask lacking significant forms. You spent more time getting the damn swoop of his hair right than considering adding the mechanical facilitators of nuance and microexpression. Besides, sending Jake a robot protector that looked like you and also showed emotion was even more dangerous than what you did manage to send. God forbid Jake learn something about you from the robot.

All this doesn't mean you can't tell what the Brobot is thinking. Obviously you can. Maybe it's the Creator-Creation bond. Maybe it's a Heart thing.

Whatever it is, you circle around to the other side of Jake and Brobot and take Brobot's other hand. It's clenched; you open it, and place it on the base of Jake's neck. At that, Jake sways, leaning harder on Brobot.

You show Brobot how to rub his thumb against Jake's neck, then let go again.

They move together; it's all Jake, you're sure, the way they rock weight from one foot to the other and back again. Jake's hands stroke up and down the robot's back, nails tapping against the smooth metal.

When he eases back to look up at Brobot, his lips curve up. "You couldn't've given him lips? How did you expect him to be a shining metal mirror of Strider himself and not give him a mouth to run at all hours?"

"Too much for me to handle," you say. Whether it was a dearth of resources of emotional immaturity, you leave unanswered.

"A damned shame." Jake cups Brobot's face and rises up on his toes to lay a kiss in the approximate location of where lips should've been. Another failing of yours.

At least now you have a do-over.

You redirect Brobot's hands to rest lower. Nowadays, you think nothing of grabbing two handfuls of prime English ass, but back when you were a teenager, your desires were significantly more gunshy. In deference, you help Brobot palm Jake's hips.

His red-glass optics are back solidly on Jake. You can't help but smile a little at that.

Everything is colored with nostalgia. The portrait is so chaste that it belongs on daytime TV, but you remember what it was like to finally have Jake, and how long you could spend just marveling at how it felt to have a warm human body in your arms. The novelty of it after so long just imagining it, imagining _him_ , was enough to get your teenage motor running.

So to speak. You snort and put your hand on Brobot's shoulder.

Weirdly, Jake pulls back and lets out a winded sound, resting his forehead on Brobot's chest.

"You okay?" you ask.

"All lights green, don't you worry. Just…" He lets out a tense breath through his teeth. "It's a tad much. And I've-- like any hot-blooded fellow gifted a gleaming wrestlebot, I've thought about it. But the logistics…" Jake nods vaguely downward, where Brobot has just blue denim mesh to represent jeans.

"Not exactly fully functional and anatomically correct," you agree.

"More's the pity," Jake mutters.

"Well, we were thirteen. I wasn't going to send you a sex 'bot."

"What a prude you have sort of retroactively turned out to be in hindsight," Jake jibes, but his voice is still strained. It's almost endearing, the way his voice starts to crack before he gets it under control again.

But more importantly, Brobot is looking at you again, seeking guidance.

This part is simple; your robotic double doesn't have the equipment to experience the strange emotion called human arousal, but you also know that taking care of Jake was its own reward. And Brobot was/is you, ergo.

You gesture to Jake. "Go on. You've got this."

Brobot seems less certain, but does pull Jake in closer. With a soft sigh, Jake grips him right back and shifts against him. His hips squirm and he peppers Brobot's indistinct face with pecks.

It bothers you that the only feature you gave him was the damn shades. It seems like some kind of disservice in hindsight.

You have so much to make up for. Stepping in, you lean against Brobot's back and loosely grip his wrists. This time, when you direct him, he moves swiftly, catching on fast. Which isn't surprising; when the dam broke between you and Jake, it was fast like this too. All of your imagined choreography coming together so you could, well, come together.

Together, you help Brobot brace Jake, hitching on of his legs up and holding it up. Jake shuts his eyes, cheeks darkening as he presses in harder and rubs against Brobot's body, movements intent and tremulous. His arms wrap around Brobot's neck, and you move until the robot's arm is around Jake's waist.

Jake moans, rubbing his face against Brobots with his eyes tight shut. "Dirk… oh, Dirk, Dirk," he chants quietly, lining up with the rocking of his hips. Your name comes over and over, speeding up as you hold onto him and watch him wring his pleasure out of Brobot.

He's done fast; back then, you were both a little quick on the trigger so to speak. Jake's voice catches on a gasp, and he shudders, fingers trying to dig into unrelenting metal as he rubs himself through it.

Without you having to do anything, Brobot moves to hold Jake up as his legs wobble.

You step back, meaning to let them share the moment. Instead, Brobot turns sharply to look at you.

Jake strokes up and down Brobot's arms and hums in a sleepy content way. Once again, your robot wants guidance.

You sit on the jungle floor and pat the space next to you. Hinges working in perfect unison, Brobot joins you, bodily turning Jake until he can sit in the lotus fold of his metal lap.

His head slumped against Brobot's chest, Jake is slow to stir again. But you wait him out, watching Brobot slowly stroke Jake's arm with a simulation of human affection that's as real as you could ever manage.

Jake reaches out with a lazy drape of his arm over your knee. You take hold of his hand, intertwining your fingers.

You look at them, trying to see if there's a difference in your hands, then and now. But they look the same as you remember, just Jake's hands. Not something pulled from a memory.

Glancing back at him, you find him older again. The soft lines around his eyes and mouth are back. His scruff is back, because he always seems to dream himself with a bit of a five o'clock shadow. His glasses are the new ones with the wood frames.

He's your Jake. And maybe he always was.

He reclaims his hand for a second, reaching under his glasses to rub his eyes. They seem a little too bright. "Sorry about that, clementine. Sort of expected it to go differently. Bit blindsided."

"Yeah. Me too. I'm fine with it."

Jake tucks his head against Brobot's arm even as he holds your hand again, squeezing.

Moving slow, like a skittish creature, Brobot puts his arm around Jake's shoulders. He glances up at you for approval.

You nod once, and squeeze right back, letting the moment between the three of you linger for a while. There's no rush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **chapter content:** brobot, fighting (no injuries), de-age to 16, frottage, essentially a group therapy session


	15. 15 October - take a breather (Domesticity)

You wake slowly from a weird dream wherein you were trying (and failing by a significant margin) to drive an old-Earth style car with Roxy. Sunlight is spilling warm across your face, already heating up towards the usual tropic temperatures. You yawn and rub your face, blearily stretch before sitting up.

Jake's not in bed anymore, though the sheets are still pretty warm. You… hm. You didn't have any dreams that were out of the ordinary last night. Nothing sexual about the Roxy dream, obviously, and if you dreamed anything else, it's long forgotten.

Weird. Weirder yet that having bizarre Hope-powered sex dreams has become the norm, but still.

You swing your legs out of bed and go to hunt down your boy and get some answers out of him.

He hasn't gone far, only trailed to the coffeemaker, still naked and yawning and trailing a blanket he apparently stole off the bed. You slip up beside him to exchange a brief kiss, and he reels you in against his side with the help of the blanket.

You lean your head against his. "So," you say. "No dream-sharing last night, hm?"

Jake grimaces in the corner of your vision as the coffee machine burbles ominously before spitting out a jet of brain fuel into an old, chipped mug. "Apparently not, nope."

You steal his coffee and take a sip. He sighs in a belabored sort of way and you hand it back over with a quirk of amusement. "Any reason in particular?"

He slurps the coffee loudly, but doesn't dodge for too long. "Guess I just got wrung out! Even I've got to recharge the old erotic battery from time to time, you know? Just ran out of firecrackers to light off in our commingled unconsciousnesses."

"Sure." You wrap an arm around him and stare out the kitchen window at the jungle for a few minutes, just breathing in the smell of Jake's coffee.

"I don't mean I'm dropping the whole idea!" Jake says suddenly, interrupting your drifting thoughts. "Just, you know. Took the night off. Not such a crime."

"Dude," you say, bemused. Usually you're the one overthinking things. It's always weird to be on the other side of it. "Yeah, it's fine. I get it. Need help brainstorming ideas or something?"

You can all but feel him grin. "Oh, brainstorming, hm?"

"Not like that," you say, biting down a smile of your own. "Well, a little like that. I was thinking we could watch some weird porn or something."

"Hmm." Jake takes his time thinking it over, sipping more of his coffee. "I think I can do you one better, if you're ready for it."

"Hit me."

He sets his mug down on the counter with mock-thoughtfulness, then yanks away the blanket from your unsuspecting body and jumps into the air with a laugh. "Let's go back to bed and watch _Avatar_ ," he says, and zooms out of the room before you can gather the wits to protest.

God. Every time you see that damn movie you swear that the next time you see it you're finally going to lose it and make Karkat declare it illegal to own a copy of that fucking horrible pretense of a movie anywhere on the planet.

And yet, here you are.

With a sigh, you polish off the last of Jake's coffee and resignedly follow him back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> even horny disaster boys need a break sometimes


	16. 16 October - [s] jake: be the worst (Safewording)

You’re standing in a jungle, the undergrowth thick all around you. It’s nighttime, you think, though what you can see of the canopies is so thick that you suspect it obscures light even in the daytime. 

It isn’t your jungle. You would recognize it, the specific array of plants and nighttime sounds. The humidity is the similar, the weight of the air and of the living presence of the forest pressing down around you, but no. The sound is so different. You’re quiet and still, tucked up in a slot between thick, tangled trees, leaves bracketing you in like walls of lamina and chlorophyll. 

The jungle breathes with you. 

You aren’t alone out here. Well, obviously not. He’s here somewhere, amidst these trees. On your island, it would be a trick to find him, even after all the years together exploring it. He can go invisible so easily that it still startles you, the way he can slide into denser foliage and go as still and quiet as a rabbit. A hunted thing. 

It’s a remnant of his childhood, you’re sure, though he’d shy away from saying it so directly. Hard to play at being brave when you’re prey that moves on quiet feet and relies on predators picking each other off to survive. 

Well, that’s not totally fair. Jake came a long way on the same sort of bravery that it took you and Roxy to survive so long while living in a bear trap. 

Okay, that’s enough forest-based hunting metaphors for one night. Jake hasn’t shown himself yet, which means that maybe it’s up to you to get this show on the road. 

You gather yourself and step out into the clearing in the trees, planning to follow the edge until you get a better idea of where you’re headed. Your tail swings out behind you for balance, and — 

Wait a fucking second. You  _ do _ know this jungle. 

“JAKE!” you yell at the trees, very carefully refraining from looking down at your body. “Absolutely not! I refuse! We’re  _ not _ doing this.” 

You summarily break the stupid fucking movie jungle into bits and pieces, let it turn to nice, safe, standard black and white static and sprint back to the safety of your own mind before Jake can appear and pout and try to persuade you. For fuck’s sake, forget sleep, you’re going to wake up right fucking now and text Karkat that it’s an emergency and he needs to issue a ban on this goddamn movie before Jake tries to trick you into being an insult to the genre of science fiction of a space cat alien furry again. 

"Aww, come on, just a little bit of mind meld?" Jake shouts distantly. 

"No!" You slam the figurative door to your brain shut in his face without the smallest trace of guilt and with a feeling of great triumph. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags: space cat alien furries (of the blue variety), wink wonk


	17. 17 October - cashing out all your chips (Prohibition AU)

A snowstorm is leaning down on the Grey City, and people deal with the impending weather event in different ways. One of your bouncers and half the live band don't seem willing to risk the trip down to Lower Wacker, perhaps more for how perilous climbing out of the subterranean district will be in a few hours' time. A large portion of your clientele deem the journey too risky.

But, there are others who want to warm themselves with alcohol, enough to make the lack of staff and the patronage proportional. It's a quieter night, with mellow music and more bent heads and hushed conversation than swinging parties. Hell, you think one of the felt tables is being used for a bridge game, ferried by little glasses of schnapps.

If every evening was like this, you couldn't afford to keep the Antebordellum up and running. But for this, for the storm, you don't mind. Makes you feel like you're running an upscale oak bar, honestly.

Of the people who ventured out in search of firewater, you aren't surprised to see your midnight caller among them. It has been a fair stretch of time since you first got tangled up with his particular brand of horseshit. Your handsome blackmailer has never been a regular customer, disappearing for weeks at a time between his visits. But this week, he's found his way into your speakeasy every night.

This time, he's sat at the bar on the furthest stool, leaving space between himself and the other two be-stooled lushes. He has a handsome winter coat and a green scarf that matches his eyes and looks buttery soft.

Due to the short handing, you are working the bar yourself while one of your people just runs drinks. When your caller takes his seat, you rest your knuckle on your hip and stare at him.

He smiles back at you without an ounce of worry. "Brrr! A shivering night tonight, isn't it? Could a fellow get a drink to warm the bones?"

"Depends on the fellow," you tell him.

"Not on the drink?" His smile is unabating and unsettlingly warm.

You turn, prepared to grab the absinthe for his _Green Sun_. He coughs to interrupt you, and says, "Could I have the dealer's choice, actually? Sort of in the mind for something different tonight, if you don't mind, my feather-locked gent."

It's the first time he hasn't had that damn drink. Again you find yourself narrowing your eyes at him. His smile fades to something more readily recognizable as human, and he takes off his coat, resting it on the stool beside. "You seem the sort to know his liquors," he adds.

You don't know why he's acting like you're not already well acquainted. You and he have been _acquainting_ in the suite enough times that the charade sticks out as strange.

But fine. You keep the elderflower gin off the shelf, lest someone order it and waste it in their own concoction. As the owner of the joint, you reserve a few special privileges for yourself. This bottle is one of them.

You mix and offer up your own gin and tonic to him. "And what tab will this be under?" you ask, playing along for the moment.

Your midnight caller takes the glass and toasts you with it. "Jake Harley, if that suits you."

The fuck.

You turn and walk down the bar to check on your other customers, your _actual_ customers who get their drinks and tricks for free. There is no way that's his real name. You know it can't be. But it's finally something you can call him, something other than 'you absolute cheating prick' or 'sir.'

What the hell is he doing this time?

Everyone is still nursing their last round, and _Jake Harley_ is giving you cow eyes from the other end of the bar. Fine. You cross back over to rearrange the glasses kept under the bar near him.

"Out of curiosity," he says when you return to earshot. "If I were to open a tab up for you, what would you sign?"

Straightening, you cross your arms over your chest and glare outright at him. "I don't get what you're up to, _Harley_. And what would I even put on a tab I opened with you?"

He ducks his head, leaning over his drink with a fond smile. On anyone else in the city, it would be a great look, modest and a little coy. He wears it well. "Don't know yet. I wager we could find… something."

Once again: you're the owner of the place, and it's your bottle. You grab it by the neck, off the counter, and swallow a belt of elderflower gin before replacing it out of sight. "I need to make rounds."

Harley nods, head hung and shoulders slumped. It seems he anticipated this. More than anything, you wish you knew what he was playing at this time.

Still, you step out from behind the bar and do a circuit around the Antebordellum. Touching base with your people, shaking hands with a few of the wealthier regulars, and simply standing near the band platform to listen to the silver trumpet for a moment. There's no going out to get fresh air, so this will have to do in clearing your head.

You can't leave the bar unattended too long; when you feel a little more steady, you return. Just to make everything crystal clear, you walk past Harley and tend to the other drinkers first, topping them up and mixing them new cocktails.

Then, as if facing the firing squad, you step down to Harley again and stand there.

He perks up at the sight of you. "Barkeep, you are a sight for sore eyes. Which I imagine is something you hear a lot."

"There's plenty of lushes to go with the slush in this town."

"I wasn't referring to your beverage-crafting acumen, actually." He pushes his empty glass to you. "That little vest does utterly sinful things to your waistline, has anyone told you that. I would be equal parts honored and offended to be the first."

"I don't know what you're doing right now," you tell him, ignoring the way your ears are burning. Taking his glass, you set about refilling it. When you place the drink in front of him, you lean in and lower your voice to privacy. "I will see to you later, but it's early in the evening, all right?"

Harley holds your gaze, eyes dark like green velvet this close. "I'm plenty seen to, don't you fret any feathers there, Strider."

"Then what's your game?"

His lips curl ruefully. "Oh. No game. Or, less of a game than usual, I assure you."

"You're playing at something, with all these pleasantries and nothings."

He sips his drink and lets out a little hum before shaking his head. "Of course you're suspicious. My fault, blast it all. But I'm just playing at the same thing as ever, clementine. Believe it or not, up to you."

"Not," you tell him, and look away. "You already won, shark."

He rests his cheek in his palm. "I thought I had too."

One of the runners shows up with a handful of drinks written on their little flipbook. In code, obviously; you teach it to everyone who works in your establishment, least one of the order books winds up evidence for the prosecution later. One of the larger parties is getting another round of everything. Grabbing glasses, you get to work, aware of the eyes following you as you mix and pour and measure.

Filling up the little round tray, you send the runner back on their way.

Harley still has his head lifted, as if the weight were too heavy for his neck alone. "You look like one of those Leyendeckers."

"Don't know how a working man looks like a painting," you scold him, now sure your flush is spreading over your face.

"Hm. Don't know. Never was much of an artist. Just an appreciator of fine things."

You don't have shit to say to that and rearrange the spare glasses again, reversing the last changes you made to the row of stemware and tumblers. When that isn't enough to spend the nervous energy that's snuck its way into your bones, you pour yourself a fast drink, orange liqueur and soda on the rocks. Leaning back against the backboard, you drink, staring out over the room.

"Drinking on the job?" Harley asks.

You finish savoring your mouthful first before saying, "Steel yourself. You may find this place to be a den of illicit activities."

His smile returns. "Oh, and thank heavens for that."

Harley's presence is a constant nagging thing that follows you around as you tend to the patrons and make your rounds. The mood of the Antebordellum remains close and quiet as the hours slip by. The blizzard is unrelenting, and eventually you feel the effects down in your little hidden parlor; the lights flicker and go out intermittently, eventually for such long spans of time, your staff runs around setting up candles and storm lamps on the tables.

You put one out on the bar. The people taking up the barstools take their leave to go sit closer to the rest of the party.

Only Harley remains, taking the abandoned seat closest to the lamp.

Things have slowed down enough for you to do restocking. In the dim light, it's hard to tell what needs topping up. Picking up bottles, you weigh them in your hands, and build a mental list.

Behind the bar is a narrow door leading to the stockroom. You unlock it and duck instead to replenish a few spirits, just what you can carry.

You return, put new bottles on the shelf. Building another mental list, you retreat back again.

As you look around for the crate of cabernets you need, a light follows you. You pick up a bottle by the neck and turn, lifting it.

Fucking Harley is there, holding the storm lamp aloft. he holds up a quelling hand. "Hey, now, no need for that. Just thought you could use a torch." He places one of hands on his hip and looks around. "Golly good jams, this is a dragon's hoard."

"It's also incredibly flammable, so maybe be careful with the open flame," you tell him, putting a hand on his chest to push him out.

He doesn't move, just smiles at you through flickering light. "It's hardly open, don't court disaster." One step back, away from you, and you think for a split second that he might leave peacefully. Instead, he nudges the door shut with his foot. "Perhaps I can be of assistance, Mr. Strider."

"You could have me anytime you want. You say jump, and I jump," you remind him icily. "What are you doing?"

He stares at you, eyes burning in reflected light. Lips parting, he breathes out slowly and licks his lips. "To be honest, I…" He looks away, at the lamp itself, still held up in his grip. "I'm rather used to just following my fancy and letting fortune bouy me along the rapids."

"What a charmed life."

"In some ways." His thumb finds the straight line of your suspenders, touches it lightly and strokes down the material. You turn away from him, trying to remember your list; he moves with you, hand slipping around your waist, his hand another claiming brand on your lower back.

You wait for the next step of this, the next foray into your personal space, where he might dig into you this time.

It doesn't come, which is more annoying than anything. He hovers, lips undemanding but inviting, close enough you could lean into them. But all he does is find a barrel to rest the lamp on, letting his freed hand hang at his side.

Grimacing, you look away, down at the space between your bodies, the rarity of it. "Then, what is it? Jump? Kneel? Bend over?"

Harley doesn't say anything, and you look up at him again, confused.

He's biting his lip so hard it might bleed, coppery warm and tart. "None…. none of the above. Could I…" His forehead touches yours. "Could you quell that lashing tongue for a moment?"

"Why?" you ask.

Harley tips his head and kisses you. Lips closed and meeting yours like a feather falling. You stiffen, unsure, and hear a soft stung noise against your mouth. The hand at your back runs up and down, and Harley leans back, tips the other way, and kisses you again.

It's not a blackmailer taking trade out on his target. It's a debutante and a courter under the gazebo, separate but still in shouting distance of her father. It's also completely baffling. When you part your lips from sheer stupefaction, he does the same, then just settles for kissing your lower lip and chin.

Who would have thought the same mouth that could whisper the most uncouth obscene nothings in your ear could do this too. Like your card shark had been thrown back into seminary, surrounded by nuns with metal rulers. The most forceful thing he does is nudge you back until your back presses to a tall stack of boxes, bracing you as he kisses your cheek of all things.

You put a hand on his shoulder, and he eases back enough to look you in the eye. Words fail you, even as he plainly waits for whatever you might say to all this.

When nothing comes, he grips the edge of the box over your head and leans in to mouth at your neck. Just that. Even when you try to grind against him, he cants his hips back. You've never known Harley to be shy like this.

Holding onto his shoulders, you shut your eyes as he works his lips and teeth against your neck. Never below the collar of your shirt, just painting a stripe of narrow attention from your ear down along the tendon that stretches there before it vanishes beneath your shirt. It's meditative, leaving you hyperaware of your body.

Eventually, you slap his shoulder hard. "You're leaving a mark."

He lifts his head and kisses your cheek. "Already have. May as well let me finish."

You knock your head back against the crate and sigh, but say nothing more as he worries at your skin with bites and bruises. Of course. Why not, at this point?

Before long, he kisses your Adam's apple, then your chin, then your mouth again, slow and deep. Cupping your neck, he pressing his thumb in and you shiver at the soreness.

Harley sighs and rests his forehead against yours, eyes lidded as if he were tired. "I have a question for you, Mr. Strider."

"Alright," you say with blatant confusion.

"Could a gentleman tempt you to come out of your glamorous little underground shell and perhaps out to dinner sometime?"

You gawk at him. "What?"

"Dinner. When the storm lets up, of course."

"What? Why?"

"I… think you would make a fine companion for a meal?"

You snort. "Is that all?"

Harley shakes his head, and it rocks your head slowly in unison. "Not really, but I thought it would be a start."

A start to _what?_ You run your hands down from his shoulders to hold his elbows, and are again shocked when he takes a step back from you, eyes still heavy. It's difficult to tell in the lamplight, but he seems almost sad.

You lick your lips. "I don't really do dinner, as a rule. Too close to opening time, so I rarely have opportunity."

"Oh," Harley says, and takes another step away.

"But I do breakfast. Or, I suppose brunch might be more accurate. It's the main meal of my day," you tell him.

His smile is fast and catches the light from the lamp. "Well that certainly makes sense! Then, could I tempt you out to one of the fine establishments that serves morning food to the aboveground folk?"

"I-- sure," you say. "Why?"

"No reason," Harley says, and lets you go. "Or mayhaps I want to see what you look like in the dawning light."

"Fine," you tell him, uncertain and unfooted. "Not this morning, I am going to have to clean up after the long night."

"Can I help?"

What the fuck. "No, you can clear out with the rest of the crowd and avoid causing a scene." Harley pouts. You ignore him. "Where…. If you want…"

"I know a spot in Wrigleyville. I'll write down the address for you."

"That's fine. Now please get out of my storeroom."

Harley lets out a little gasp, his jocular nature seeming to return to him swiftly now that things are settled to his liking. "But I can't let you work in the dark! How will you find anything!"

"By leaving my lamp behind when you go," you inform him.

He smiles, ducking his head almost bashfully, and nods. "As you please, Mr. Strider."

He turns to leave.

You pick up the lamp and turn up the light. It cuts through the darkness like a beacon, with the strength of an LED, not an oiled flame. "Hey. Jake."

He turns, and peers around. The noir monochrome has been banished from the room, letting in dark browns and the colorful labels on the bottles. "Oh. Yes? I thought that was a fine end."

"Sure, I mean… but what was the point? When we came back to this one, I figured you wanted to do more blackmail-fueled domination or something with gambling again. Maybe lean into the sex work angle some more."

His brow furrows. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he saunters back over to you. "I'm not adverse to that. It's a fun frolic, no doubt there. But this one, I sort've… Hm."

You cross your arms, waiting him out.

"I don't like things that don't feel capped off and wrapped up, you know? Especially this, since it's got all the shades of Bogie and Bacall. And last round didn't feel like we hit the credits." He sniffs loudly and plucks at one of your suspenders. "Your surly lonely bones in particular. Thought he needed some kind of, whatsit. A better lead out, I guess."

"Being eternally wrapped up in a handsome scoundrel is a pretty solid ending," you remark.

"To you, of course you'd think so." Jake shrugs. "Maybe I just didn't want you all sad."

"Aw," you say, a little sarcastically. Mostly because you don't know what else to say to that.

"Open one of these wines and put a cork in it, sunshine. Next time, I'll really throw you a curve ball, see how you like it."

"I'll probably like it," you point out. Jake snickers and nods in agreement. "Okay. Goodnight. Or, good morning?"

"Yeah. Mornin', lovey." He leans in and kisses you, familiar and warm, and you shut your eyes and sink to the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **chapter content:** return to the Prohibition AU with all the historical inaccuracies therein, flirtation, quiet necking in the storeroom
> 
> Yeah I just. Wasn't feelin' the Fucc for this one. Sorry. 8(


	18. 18 October - the air was full of sound (Oasis AU 1/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since we're off schedule, I am going to lean all the way in and just write another absurd AU using the conceit of this story, strap in, lets fuckin' go.

It's evening, and you and Jake are sitting in the workshop, having dinner and tinkering around. You have your tablet hooked into the positronic brain of your latest robotic creation. Jake has a bunch of scrap pieces scattered around him and appears to just be hooking them together at random. Whatever he's idly making, it has a dozen little feet that twitch and flick as it attempts to learn basic locomotion.

You dunk some crusty bread into the stew and eat with big bites. Out of all the pleasures of life with fresh food, free of rations, bread is in the top ten. Maybe top five.

"Hey," you start, interrupting the easy silence between you.

Jake makes a non-verbal sound of inquiry, sorting through his junk pile for another straight piece that could complete the leg he's working on.

You spot one and pick it up, handing it to him. "I was thinking. About tonight?"

You suddenly have the full force of Jake's undivided attention. "Were you now? Anything specific?"

"Sort of. Was kind of wondering if you'd mind if… I took the lead on the dream. Set it up myself."

The whoop of breath Jake lets out seems _relieved_ more than anything. "You know, I think that's a completely brilliant idea. Turns out this whole daily dreamweaving thing is a ton of work! I could use a sabbatical if you're up for it."

"Yeah," you murmur, nodding along. "By now I've got a handle on how it works. I build the parts I know, and you populate the details. It's very, uh."

"Like _Inception!"_ Jake supplies with a laugh. "Our own triple X rated mind heist, except the spoils aren't the dissolution of a megacorporation, but sex."

You roll your eyes. "Fine, yeah. So. Tonight?"

He beams at you and winks. "Can hardly wait."

 

* * *

 

**_[Now Playing:[Track 01 - "A Horse With No Name (Alternative Early Mix)" America](https://open.spotify.com/track/0n87AijrHjcM9HXiReP4Fy?si=KM2WEStkTF2Tbv6QKqfKKw)]_ **

 

* * *

 

Your name is Jake English, and for as long as you can remember, you have had a desperate thirst for adventure.

When you were young, you certainly didn't know the name of the thing or what it meant. Without understanding what the chasm in your chest meant, you tried to subsist on whatever you could get your hands on. Old travel journals from your Gran's excursions, the boastful stories of longshoremen at the pubs, and every epic saga you could pull from the library shelves. It was like trying to fill a water barrel with a teaspoon, but in your youth and adolescence, you weren't exactly flush with options.

Now, today, you are hundreds of miles and thousands of days away from that boy who shook with clenched tension. Directing your horse, you traverse the Tarjad Sands, hopefully following the trail of your latest adventure.

Hidden in the heart of the white sands is a lost city, the Beryllium Gardens. No one has seen it in centuries, mostly because it's so deep in the desert, anyone who attempts the journey winds up a desiccated lump in the sand.

You're not headed for the Beryllium Gardens yet. You're not stupid. Recovering a lost monument of civilization is not a task to be shouldered on a whim and a prayer.

First, you are headed to an oasis. A magic place, thought the idea is a little redundant; in your experience, all oases are some degree of magical. But this one, you've been told, holds the key to making your journey further south to Beryllia feasible.

You are a man of adventure, but you're not courting death.

The journey out from the closest town is a week. A week of fighting off the heat haze to keep a leash on your constant vigilance. The desert's not a forgiving gal, and if you let loose your attention at the wrong time, you'll never see the purportedly emerald walls of that old city. Which would be such a shame.

For a week, you keep a constant watch over your horse, ensuring she's pulling you fine. For a week, you keep your eyes sharp on your compass and map, plodding out a mostly-direct line towards the rumored location of the oasis. For a week, you sleep under a blanket of stars.

The wind and sand smooth your mind of its extraneous thoughts. There is only forward progress.

For such a beautifully bland landscape, just rolling dunes and the very scattered gnarled trees, spiky cacti, and razor grass, you expect the oasis to stand out like a thrice-struck sore thumb. Any variation to the landscape would be as incongruous as a wine stain on a white shirt.

Navigation is a strong suit of yours, so when you come to the place where the oasis is meant to be and see no sight of life out in the dunes, finally some true worry squirms in your chest. Either you are off-course or this fabled oasis doesn't exist.

It's a full day of careful searching before you find the oasis, and when you do, the cause of your temporary misdirection becomes clear.

The oasis is not a spit of blue and green nestled in the sand like many you've seen. No, this one is hidden by more than just isolation and sand.

You find it by stumbling upon a part of the land that goes stony under your horse's hooves, her steady trot turning to an audible clop as she strikes stone under the sand. The sturdy surface stretches out from you for a fair shake before it suddenly vanishes, falling down to a deep chasm.

Hopping gingerly off your horse, you approach the edge of the stone, taking each step gingerly, as if a pressure trap were just waiting for your first misstep.

But you reach the sudden steep drop without incident, and peer down.

The earth has a gouge cut through it, like a crack punched through thick glass. From where you stand, the drop is a good fifty feet or so to the bottom.

Tucked into the craggy gorge is water.

Bracketed by blindingly white sand and dry earth, there is water the most perfect blue you have ever seen, a precise color mirror of the cloudless sky over your head. To the sides, there is shadow, where the walls of the gorge cast a pitch dark shade. Your sun-inured eyes cannot piece out anything that way. But the oasis is too brilliant to be a mirage, and is beautiful and calm, stretched before you like a waiting lover in white sheets.

Unfortunately, the drop is steep, and you're initially unsure what to do. Walking along the edge for a while, you try to find a spot where you could feasibly climb down. All around, the distance appears about constant.

So, you will have to make your own way. You lead your horse to the relative shade of one of the scraggly desert trees, tying her loosely to a low branch.

Then, to the same tree, you tie a rope, and drop the other end down the gorge. It's hard to tell if your line is long enough, but the tip seems to hit the water before, sending out a ripple. It's stark against the placid surface, growing and growing into a massive circle before it fades into the water.

Shouldering your travel bag, full of only the survival essentials, you take to the rope and lower yourself down.

The journey to the floor of the oasis takes longer than you expect. Every time you glance down, you seem about the same distance away. Looking up, the edge above seems much farther off.

You've survived some falls and tumbles before, so as soon as you feel you've lowered enough, you let the rope slide, and drop.

Your boots splash through the water as they find solid foundation underneath, leaving you almost knee-deep in water so crisp and cold, a shiver breaks through your body.

From here the view is much clearer. The sunken oasis is casts rippling reflections of light on the curved walls around it.  As you land and disturb it, the walls dance and shine at your presence. The water itself is so clear, the bottom seems at once leagues off and just under the surface.

And the foundation is like nothing you've seen before. There is silt and shifting sand, moving in response to your presence disturbing the water, but mostly it's stone. Smooth, pale-gold sandstone, too perfect to be natural.

Cautiously, you kneel in the water, still surprised at where you hit the solid floor; it's so hard to tell depth here. But you can reach down now and touch that stone foundation. Against your fingertips, you can feel deep grooves cut into the stone. Maybe it's carved. Maybe it's tiled, with huge pieces slotted together. You can't tell with your eyes still sun-blinded and adjusting.

For a few moments, the only sound is your movement, your breathing, the quiet sigh of air moving through the sunken place, and dripping water.

Then, you hear something louder, and closer, far less ambient. Ripples bump into you, moving from behind you.

You are back on your feet quickly, revolver in hand and lifted to aim.

The oasis wake licks into the deep shadows along the gorge walls. You blink rapidly as someone takes a step from the darkness, their bare foot sliding through the water.

You are not alone here. A man stands just outside the light. The rippled reflections snake and shiver over his body, illuminating the kind of moonpale skin you're more like to see in Minnesota or Glasgow, not the depths of the desert.

He's tall, like a marble statue, and cloaked in a loosely woven drape of burnt orange cloth. That and some loose dark pants are all he's wearing, otherwise exposed dangerously to the elements of the climate.

Or, no. As he stands there and your vision finally adjusts, you can see his skin is marked with rich gold lines. Geometric and clean as a calligraphy pen, around his fingers and wrists, lining his lower lip, circling his neck. He's glimmering in the reflected light.

He stands there, arms loose and unconcerned at his sides, his eyes amber and trained on you.

Slowly, you lower your gun. "Hello there? Masā' al-khayr?"

The man's eyebrows lift. "You're not from around here."

To your knowledge, there is no _around here_ for several days of travel by horse. "No. I'm called Jake. Are… you from around here?"

"I live here."

A residency was not mentioned in any of the rumors about the oasis. In fact, it was well known among those who were in the know about such things that the oasis was beautiful and tempting but entirely unforgiving to visitors. Each person had parroted the same warning: anyone who drank the water here was doomed.

This is why you carried with you ample potable water. You have a Flask Of A Thousand Drinks. It isn't enough to get you to Beryllia, but it's more than enough for this journey to the oasis.

And yet, in spite of all that, here is a fellow claiming the place as his home. You have prepared for sandstorms and constant sunheat and getting lost in the dunes. Not for company.

He is unarmed. You hope that's a good sign. Sure, he must be some kind of quack to live out here in a poisonous oasis, but what sort of adventure in this neck of the non-woods doesn't have an eerie vagabond.

This one is nothing you couldn't handle. Especially when he finally walks into the light, water swishing around ankles. Now, you are lucky enough to see that hung around his neck is a spherical pendant. It is craggy swirls of rich, dark wood, the gaps and lines filled with a gleaming blue resin. It's beautiful, hanging low to rest below his breastbone, and you recognize it immediately as what you came here for: the Quenched Talisman. A strange, rare artifact that is said to keep the wearer from ever feeling thirst again.

There it is, real and gleaming against his gold-painted skin.

He hums quietly. "You're here for a reason."

"I would be ever so grateful if you could help me," you say, trying to keep the desperate excitement from your voice. "I seek a talisman."

 _"The_ Talisman," he says and smiles. "Do you know how to make it?"

You… had not been aware it had to be _made_. "I do not," you admit.

"It'll take time," the oasis denizen says. "Best fetch your things and make shelter for your horse."

Then he turns away, and wades out, away from you and deeper into the sunken oasis, the water rising along his legs as he moves.

More than anything, you are lucky to not be taken for a trespasser. Returning to your rope, you begin to climb, back out of the gorge, back to your horse.

You'll be back before long.

 

* * *

 

After setting up your horse around one of the bent twisty trees with shade and feed and a healthy splash from your flask, you shoulder your extra travel packs and lower yourself back into the oasis.

The relief is instant; there's a breeze up above, but the natural valley down here intensifies it to something that stirs your hair and makes the sweat on the back of your neck cool.

Finding somewhere to set up camp is difficult. The stone floor of this place truly is covered in water _everywhere_. You trudge around, pack hitched high to keep the trailing bits and bobs dry as you traverse the water.

The open sky overhead is your guide along the gorge. You expect that as you move away from the source of the oasis, it will offer you dry land.

You reach the far end, where everything narrows to a pointy gathering of blade-like rocks and fallen rubble.

When you turn, the oasis vagabond is there.

Jumping back a step, you wheeze and rest a hand reflexively on your belt. "Land's sake, how are you sneaking around in this wading pool?" You might warn him that doing so is a bad idea, but that could seem threatening, and that's a Rubicon you don't want to cross with this fellow who spoke so confidently about your quarry.

He rests his hands on his hips. In the light, his skin is the same color as white sand, and his hair is like bleached bone and dove feathers. He might be an attractive dish if he didn't look so misplaced.

"What are you looking for?" he asks.

"Sort of a big question," you tell him, and make an effort to relax to an appropriate level of caution. "At the moment, a place I could set up tent would be grand. I haven't found the shore in this place yet."

"And you won't. Come with me." He turns and gestures for you to follow without so much as another backwards glance. "You took care of your horse?"

"Most assuredly. A man can't be careful enough with his steed out this far. I'm sure you know how far the journey is."

It's an unsubtle probing question. The man shrugs. "Don't remember. Now back in the main cistern, the walls slope pretty low. You can set up there if you're careful. Still, better get used to the water."

You look down at his flowy pants and their damp hems. "I can see that."

He shows you to a spot near where your escape rope hangs down. Under the shade of the gorge's teeth, you have literally just enough room to make up your tent. You'll be butted again the curved, ribbed wall, but it'll do for now. As you set up, your watcher settles his ass right in the water, observing idly.

It makes the back of your neck itch. "Can I call you something?" you ask him while you work on settling in.

"Sure." He smiles, teeth gleaming like a curved knife.

Dropping your heavy pack down, you turn and stare at him.

"Dirk," he says, relenting. "Call me Dirk."

Well, thank god it's not Euphemion of the Desert Spring or something. You nod. "Is it just you out here? I don't mind company, but the jumping out of my skin because people don't have the decency to make enough noise when they walk is a tad annoying."

"Only us." His eyes shift over to your overstuffed bag. "What do you have?"

"Have?" You stand straight, and if you step just a bit between him and your possessions, blame it on the uneven slope of land you're corralled into.

He lifts a hand; water trickles down from his palm, falling and landing musically. "You are here for a Talisman. You're going to need to know how to make it. And like I said: there's only us here."

"Don't suppose you take coin," you say dryly.

"Only if it's a very interesting coin, and even then." He shakes his head. "You're a traveller, used to parting with things to get by. What've you got?"

There is a pouch in your bag where you keep the sort of things he's talking about. Because he's blunt about it, but right; when you are well-traveled, you lose track of other forms of currency. The slips of paper you got in one country will be useless against the similarly shaped but differently colored paper of another. So, you have some things that are universal.

You paw through your selection before settling on something. A palm-sized glass jar, sealed with a wax emblem. Inside is rich golden honey, as well as a chunk of comb. It's been in your bag for ages; likely you carried it across an ocean or two, the origin of it lost to your recollection.

Dirk tilts his head with calm interest as you step back into the water and come closer. He makes no sign of movement, just holding out his hand.

Gathering your courage, you rest the jar in his hand. He does nothing to grab at you are menace you, thank god. As soon as you hand off the jar, his attention narrows on it. When he holds it to the light, it casts golden shadows over him.

"Acceptable?" you ask, because if it's not you definitely want it back.

Dirk lowers the jar and breaks the seal with his nails. The wax peels away like an orange peel, and he twists off the lid, resting it on his knee. Then, with no compunctions, he pushes two fingers into the golden liquid.

It drags off his fingertips, thick strands connecting back to the jar. Bending forward, he licks it up, tongue dragging along his fingers, and then his hand as it continues to drip and slide down to his thumb. He swallows, licks his lips, then pulls his tongue over his skin in methodical swipes, cleaning the mess as warm honey spreads.

His tongue is very pink, sharp contrast. It smears the gold lines on his skin, revealing it to be some sort of paint. You swallow.

When he's sufficiently clean, he twists the lid back on. "So, alright. You need to find the source of the water, and take one of its hearts. Bring it back here."

You grin. There's nothing you love more than a good riddle, and despite Dirk's somewhat blaise delivery, you feel like you've been handed one. Already, you are thinking about metaphorical hearts you might find. "I can't imagine you've had a treat like that in a while. Should be worth a general direction."

His lips curl very faintly. WIthout a word, he points behind himself. "That way. If you reach the other end of the oasis, you've gone too far."

Taking a moment to roll up the bottom of your pants, you head out. Really, you should change into some shorts soon.  Or at this rate, some wading trousers.

 

* * *

 

Usually, the source of an oasis is a wellspring coming up from under the ground. But most oases are not weirdly subterranean and poisonous, so why would this place start conforming to the rigorous standards of remote desert havens now?

It is a very good thing you found a place for your things before setting out, because the gentle shallows of the water erratically changes in depth as you move along. It's still very difficult to gauge how far the stone floor is, and more than once you take a too-confident step only to drop precipitously to your waist or chest in the water.

Eventually, your feet can no longer reach the floor, and you start to swim in earnest. The water is agonizingly cool against your body, more than just temperature but cleansing you after so long in the sand and dust. Overhead, you can feel the sun beat down on your shoulders and the top of your head. The temptation to dive is strong.

You resist, because it can be pretty as a picture, but its still not _safe_.

The sort of ceiling of the place starts to close over your head, sending down light through small eye-hole gaps. Brilliant beams strike through the water and down, shining to the bottom as you paddle further along, and then into just a blue fog as the stone tiles apparently disappear below you.

Here, things are a little different. The gorge is not _completely_ devoid of the trademark sprigs of life that comes with water out so far. There are a few succulent plants growing along the walls, tucked into the stone and spread over more paltry spaces of dry-ish earth. There are a few of the gnarled twisty trees that make this desert their home, each one looking like strange knotted rope with white-grey bark. The largest sits on a mossy pillar jutting out like an island in the middle of the deepest water.

You nearly pass it by, still looking for the faint burble of surface tension that would signal a place to search. But as you brace your hands on the pillar to push off for some momentum, you hear the sound of trickling water.

Pausing, you grasp one of the tree roots, dragging yourself to a stop. Around you, there is no waterfall and nothing dropping from the scattered gaps in the ceiling. But the sound is present and very close.

First, you anchor yourself to the rock using the twisty tree, staring at the mossy pillar. Is it possible the spring is coming up through the rock and leaking out here? You find the small gaps in the rock and try to plug them with your fingers, searching.

Nothing, not from a full circumference around the pillar.

While you're glaring vaguely around, a fat drop of water falls on your head.

Jerking back, you look up.

The _tree_. The tree over you is stretched out like a ghostly shroud suspended from gnarled arms. The branches hold aloft a scattering of leaves. From here, you can see it through a sunbeam, and rather than the usual dull foamy green color you get out here, the leaves are _gold._ They are blazing in the light like a conflagration, like you're Moses about to get the fright of your mortal life.

And as you watch, a few leaves bend from heavy weight and let loose drips and drops of water, pinging against the stone and the surrounding pool.

Shaking yourself, you find new handholds and heave yourself upward, from the water. You are drenched in your clothes and heavy, but the roots spread down along the pillar, giving you points to brace on. With some effort, you manage to clap wet hands on the tree proper and pull up to see it.

Within the twisted tracks that run down the body of the tree, tucked into the misshapen bark, there is water. Paths of water that move steadily like a micro stream cutting through the sympathetic body of the tree. There's a few of them, carrying water down to the rock, over a few branches to the leaves, and this is it. This is the spring, right here, in a damned tree on a rock.

You brush your hair out of your eyes and squint around. With the way the light is catching on the leaves, it's hard to see anything. You're looking for a heart. Instantly you think maybe a hollow is hidden in the trunk, somewhere perfect to put sacred old things.

It's not really that kind of tree, and you frown at it in annoyance.

'One of its hearts,' Dirk had instructed you.

You look up at the leaves, shielding your eyes from the glare.

There it is. Fairly obscured by the fiery leaves are little round nuts with dark green skin. Standing very gingerly on the slick mossy stone, you reach up to grab one, and twist it loose.

It comes easy, sitting fat and heavy in your fist. You pocket it, and take care to climb back down from the pillar, leaving the tree up there gleaming like Exodus. Kicking gently off the pillar, you swim back with all haste.

Prize in pocket, you return ready for your strange companion to give you the next step in this creation process for your Talisman.

Which of course means he's nowhere to be seen when you return to your camp.

Cursing yourself to the most appropriate of the Nine Circles, you hurl yourself out of the water to your camp and start to look through your things. For some reason, though the vagabond left you ill at ease with his vaguaries and oddity, you didn't anticipate he would rob you and abscond. You were quite sure his intentions weren't as prosaic as petty theft. It seemed so bland for him.

And… perhaps you were correct. As you take mental stock, you find everything present and accounted for in your bags. Even your special items for trade are exactly where you left them.

So he's just not here. Way to jump to conclusions, English.

That leaves the question of where Dirk has gone off to. Now that you have the heart of the spring or whatever, you'd like to move on to whatever is next. You are hoping it's something like _'hand me the nut and I will just give you a Talisman, seeya.'_

But it's rarely so simple.

Changing into dry clothes, you find a rock to lay out your soaked rags on. Shorts work much better down here in the gorge, and you traverse around in careful barefeet as you try to find Dirk. The tiles under your toes feel even more strange and ornate; you rub your feet against them a bit, as if you could learn them with just that.

You make it to the far point of the gorge again with no sign of Dirk. Turning back, you pad over to the area where you first saw him, coming out of the shadows. It's across from your camp, like two opposing shores.

There isn't a camp, but the spot is clearly lived in. Smoothed stone is set around a metal and rock arrangement with old kindling and blacked wood in its maw. There's a few metal utensils, just a sturdy deep pan, a very sharp knife, and ladle.

Everything is set just a foot or so aloft, so to keep out of the water, which is flatly coating this entire open-air lodging.

In the wall are a few shelves. You walk closer, trying to see what he has stashed there.

"Kind of a nosy bastard, aren't you?"

You yelp and turn, nearly toppling over a stone bench. Predictably, Dirk is standing there watching you, one hand on his hip, the other holding a waterskin. He drinks from it, eyes trained on you.

"You were gone," you tell him, voice faint.

"Yeah. People move sometimes." He shakes his head and walks over to one of the lifted flat rocks. He takes a stringy backpack off his shoulder and drops it down. It's filled with… root vegetables and succulent leaves and other things. A few clusters of very small pebbley fruits. He eats a few, chewing as he takes a seat.

Waterskin open, he lowers his arm to the oasis water and watches it fill.

"What," you say, clamoring forward a few steps, "are you _doing?"_

He lifts an eyebrow at you while otherwise not moving. Bubbles float out of the mouth of his waterskin. "Acquiring water. I hear it's fairly integral to life in this climate, but maybe you have other ideas."

"The…" You realize how stupid this sounds as you begin to say it, and your voice falters. "The oasis. They all said it was, that the water…"

Dirk holds your eyes as he lifts his arm and takes another drink. "Yeah?" he says after, sounding splendidly quenched.

But. Your eyes flick to his own Talisman. Maybe that's part of it? You feel off-kilter as a three-wheeled wagon. "Anyway," you say, louder. "I got the _heart of the spring_." And hold up the dark skinned nut.

Dirk nods. "That's it. Good job."

He's not forthcoming with more. "What next?" you finally ask.

He grins. It's bright in the heavy shade. "Next, I'm going to enjoy my evening. I suggest you finish getting yourself comfortable. You might be here a while."

"What's the next step," you ask, voice harder.

Dirk lets out a harsh breath like a laugh. "You can't really threaten me, outsider. Walk til your legs give out and become white in the sun, you won't find another soul who knows how to make the Talisman. And this one," he taps the strung sphere around his neck, "will assist only me, until the day I die. So tough fuckin' luck." He tosses his head in the direction of your own side of the oasis. "Tomorrow, maybe, if you're real nice."

You indulge in glaring at him for a while, then turn and slosh your way back to your camp. The vagabond seems a lot less ethereal and mysterious and a lot more of an ass.

 

* * *

 

You climb up once more to refill your mare's water, and already you are thinking about your mildly mystical Flask and the oasis water.

A Flask of a Thousand Drinks will certainly last a fellow a long time. But horses drink plenty of water that is going to eat into your reserve. The vagabond seems healthy, if a bit ghostly, and has been drinking the oasis water for who knows how long. Would it be so bad to give the horse the same water and conserve your potable water for a bit.

You rub between the horse's ears and murmur, "Would you mind that so terrible there, mare?"

She doesn't answer. You sigh, make sure she's set up for the night. Grabbing some wood from aboveground, you lower yourself back down into the oasis.

Trudging back to camp, you set out your wood to look over, ready to pick the best ones for a decent fire. While you're deliberating, footsteps splash quietly behind you.

Dirk stands in the water, looking at you. "Could you spare some firewood?"

You narrow your eyes at him in suspicion. The audacity of him asking a favor after before is pretty impressive. More than anything, you want to tell him, no, maybe tomorrow.

But. But you have been traveling for a long time, and the gold on his skin plays delightful havok in the moonlight. You grit your teeth. "Why not get some yourself?"

He shrugs. "Maybe I'm bad at climbing. Will you be a good neighbor or not?"

Sighing, you hand over two long branches. It's terribly unfair that you have such a soft spot for sirens like him. More so that he seems to know it.

He smirks. "Thank you. In return, I'll show you something." He hands one piece back to you so he can handle the other with both hands. With his nails, he peels back the outer layer of bark and turns it a fair curled page of it. Inside there is a chalky pale material, like thick dust or loose silt.

"Strip the casing first, and there's soapbark underneath." Taking his other branch, he gives you a swift nod, and wanders back to his side of the water.

Soapbark sounds amazing, actually. You are glad it's already dark out, because you can feel the embarrassed flush to your face. He's a brusque, cryptic fellow but you're being the ass here.

Grabbing a decent night shirt, you squirrel away out of sight of the camps, further into the gorge where the water gets deep. It's been too long since you've cleared off the dust and grime, and you are going to be careful, so damn careful as you do this.

Longing for some cleanliness, you put a hand over your nose and mouth and submerge, just long enough to get nice and damp all over. After, you wipe the water away from your face with your shorts, just to be perfectly cautious.

Dirk drinks this stuff, and he looks hale and lovely, but still. Still, something makes a peeling bell ring in your cranium whenever you think about taking it easy and having a sip.

Instead, you scoop some of the chalky stuff in your hands, wetting it and rubbing it over your skin. It's stingy and astringent, but more powdery than the last type you used, years ago in South America. It react to the water, fizzing a bit, and it feels like the layers of dirt are just being chewed to bits by the stuff. Hell's bells, you can see your hands without the layer of muck. That's a delight.

Washing your body, you dip back into the water to rinse. Then, another palmful of the stuff goes into your hair. Just touching it makes you wince; nothing rawkish about what your 'do is doing. You wash it twice, leaning your head back into the water to rinse after each, before you finally touch your hair and feel at ease with the state of it.

When you're done, you climb onto a rock and take a big swig from your flask. This Dirk strangefellow isn't bad at all, you think. Hard to think ill of a man who gave a man a bath in the middle of the desert. Right upstanding citizen of the dunes, honestly.

When you have dripped enough, you pull on your long night shirt and bundle up your clothes to take back to camp. It's dark and there's no sunlight to dry off in, so you have to just deal with the way your shirt keeps trying to cling uncomfortably to you. It's a small hardship in the face of your relief.

Your little spot is dark. Across, there is a fire going in Dirk's pit, and to your absolute astonishment, you think you hear fucking _music?_

Dropping off your kit in your tent, you smooth down your shirt to ensure it reaches a decent level of modesty, then wander closer to Dirk's spot.

The fire is small but respectable, sending crashing jagged shadows up the walls and glinting off the water. It's a lit match in the night, and all the things in Dirk's life seem huddled around it. The man himself sits in the water, like always, and drags a long whippy stick through the water, creating patterns for the light to bounce off. In his lap is a bowl with green fleshy bits in it. As he lifts one to his mouth to bite, you realize it's the arrowhead leaves of succulents. You… hadn't been aware those were edible, actually. He seems fine though.

On his stone table, there is a wooden box, worn but clean, looking old and well-kept. There is a bronze bell expelling music from its mouth, and a crank that slowly spins. It's nothing you've heard before, a sound like the wind itself crooning, accompanied with a very slow methodical pluck of some stringed instrument that rings with the hollowness of a drum. The percussion itself sound low and taut over old skins.

Dirk nods his head along with the music before he takes notice of your approach. "Evening. You clean up well."

"Thanks to you," you say, determined to be gracious. "I appreciate the help."

He tucks his chin to his chest and breathes out deeply. "Yeah. So, going to go to bed like that? You can sit, if you want. Dry off by the fire."

"Says the man who's always at least ankle deep in water," you point out, hopefully in a teasing tone and not a rude one. You take the seat opposite him, keeping the fire between you. "I, erm. I have some jerky and a few dried things, if you were wanting."

"I'm fine." He taps his fingers on his bowl. "Well provided for."

Fair enough. You listen to the music for a while, until it begins to slow into a new sound, dreadful and haunted. Dirk sighs and sets his bowl to float by him, leaving him free to reach over and crank the player again. Swiftly, the music returns to something pleasant.

"That's a nice tune. It's good luck, having music out this far from civilization."

Dirk hums and settles again, nodding. "The sound down here is good. It echoes a bit."

You listen, and ascertain this is true, and it's very nice.

Across from you, Dirk scoops water in his mouth with his hands, and the paint on his hands and arms smears into cloudy lines.

He spots you looking, and lowers his eyes almost demurely. Fucking hell, you think there is a little gold at the corner of his mouth. "So the heart."

It has not left you since you got it. You reach into your shirt pocket and pull it out.

Dirk stands, ringing down rivulets as he circles around the fire to you. You do your very best not to lean away from him. Predictably, he plops down again, between you and the table, in the damn shallows again. He takes the heavy nut from you and examines it. You hold your breath.

"You'll need to peel it. Or, here." He works his nails into its skin and pulls. Much like the wax seal, it comes away in strips, and as it does, a gold paste is revealed underneath.

He grabs a clean bowl off the table behind him and starts to drop the skin into it. "You don't need this part." But he can use it, you can clearly see. The metallic stuff catches in his fingers and coats the back of his hands soon enough. "Hey, toss another stick on the fire, will you?"

There's one in reach, similar to the thin one he toys with before. It has pale yellow leaves, and the bark is a little sticky as you pick it up. Tossing it onto the flame, you rub your fingers on the stone seat, trying to get it off. Sap? Is it sap?

Dirk cleans the nut of its skin and holds up the gold-drenched remains; it's a fair-sized pit, reminding you of the center of an apricot or a peach, with its craggy surface and dark, dark wooden texture.

Seeing it dripping like that feels strange. Almost like a recently-living thing now dead or dying. Gorey, in a sense.

Thankfully, he cleans it in the water before passing it to you. "So, next step?" you ask hopefully.

He chuckles, rubbing his fingers idly together. "I'll need something for that, you know."

Unfortunately, you sort of had that feeling. "Fine. Tell me."

"Still deciding, hold your horses." He glances up at you, face half in shadow thanks to the firepit. "You seem in a hurry, sojournor."

You take a deep breath, and cough. It's smoky over here. Maybe that's why he sits down in the water, to keep under it? It's not terrible though; you think the sap in that branch might be burning up, lending a tacky richness to the air. "I'm on the trail of the Lost Gardens of Beryllium. It's said to be out in this neck of the dunes, but… very far afield. No one who follows the posts and signs to find it ever comes back."

Dirk bobs his head. "Ah. So, that's why."

"Yes, I figure solving the problem of dehydration would be the key to finding my way. So, I kept an ear out with those in the know about artefacts and whatnot, and," you spread your arms demonstratively.

"Come to a 'poisoned' well seeking the key to never feeling thirst again," he says mildly.

"But you drink," you point out.

"I don't need to," Dirk explains. "But think on this. If you found the Reliquary Of Never Needing Food, would you stop eating?"

"Of course not, food is great."

"And so is this water." He drinks more, leaving you stuck watching it dribble down his chin.

As you become accustomed to the particular queerness that is your neighbor, you can't help but find the environment relaxing. It's part of why you got into this gig, setting out and losing yourself to the world and it's myriad treasures. This brand of stillness, of quiet, with just the sound of the fire and the music and the water.

Even the smoke stops bothering you so much. You lean back against surprisingly forgiving stone and sigh.

It's not sap. It's resin. Woodsy and dense with a bright sweetness. There's a green scent to it, maybe from the burning leaves. Regardless, you can taste it in your mouth, like the smoke is settled over your tongue. You can roll it around like a candy melting, and your mouth waters a little.

You clear your throat and blink up at the ceiling, lifting your heavy head to look at the flames.

It may be a good idea to excuse yourself and return to your tent, but Dirk starts to speak quietly. "I've decided. So, you can start on the next step come morning. You'll need a very steady hand and a very sharp blade."

You hold your breath in anticipation. It burns in your lungs and you let out a gust of breath, then gasp softly.

If Dirk notices, he doesn't pay any mind. "You need to take the pit and make it into the, hm. The vessel for the charm. It has to be perfect or, you know, it'll crack loose and slip free, then suddenly you're going to find yourself very unquenched."

Nodding slowly, you lower your head back. You can see the fire still, in a sense, in how it casts its warm glow over the walls around you. Cripes' sake, you're tired. It's not surprising, given how long you have been travelling, and how hectic your day has been since you arrived here in the sunken oasis. Perhaps the bath is to blame, like you gave your body the a-okay to take it easy and finally drop your guard after so long on point.

You're sprawling a little too much. It's not polite, but you can feel your heels slide lazily out from you, more like you've draped yourself in an old armchair in your Gran's house than a carved squat rock in the middle of a gorge.

Warmth is licking at your knees. The fire. You hum, pitching it so Dirk knows you are most definitely listening to him. Gods know you want to be an attentive audience to this man. He's speaking wisely, like he knows what he's gassing on about, and with mystic stuff, that's always a feat.

"Circles are control, usually. Or, any of the sacred geometries would work, but do you want to carve a dodecahedron out of this? Doubt it, but I'd be impressed. So you need to make a sphere, and as perfect as you can."

It's actually quite warm over here. Usually a desert night gets you with a sneaky bit of chill, but… you're very close to the fire, you figure, and Dirk's little home is tucked into something like a grotto. Clever, for keeping safe from the elements. lifting a hand, you rub your neck, where your sweating slightly, and pop open the top button of your longshirt. That should be fine; Dirk walks around in pants and gold skin paint.

There's disturbance in the water; it's silent, but you feel the way it moves against your legs. He must be moving, but he keep going, so:

"Obviously carving a sphere out of this material isn't all that feasible. The gaps and tunnels through the heart go deep, if you did an actual solid sphere, it'd be too small to use. What you want to do is to sort of make the idea of the sphere. Pick a size you want it to be, and cut off all the excess, and smooth all that's left until you have the skeleton of the sphere. Later you'll fill in the spaces. You've seen the one I wear, so."

Reaching under you, you shift against the stone, trying to relieve… pressure. Yeah, there's something stringing tight in you. Now would be a perfect time to excuse yourself for a moment of privacy, but this… all he's saying, it's important. You have to know it if you're going to make the Talisman.

Still, you resettle and feel prickly heat down your body, out from your chest, like each breath in-out pushes it further through you.

Opening your eyes is like lifting a boulder up a hill. Everything is clouded with smoke; the fire is going low, but still smouldering away, and the haze stings your eyes, makes you want to just shut them again.

Brighter than the fire is the feathery pale hair. He's between you and the fire, casting that shadow up over you. You blink heavily, and stifle another cough, instead taking another deep breath to try and drown it.

He's close enough, you could maybe touch him. Your hand twitches, but stays leaden and flat against the stone.

"It's a complicated process. But you look like the type of guy who probably whittles or something. Handcrafts, right? Yeah."

There's a sticky feeling on your knee. That doesn't seem like the fire. When you start to shift away from it, something blocks your legs from moving.

"There's a complicating part to all this that I haven't mentioned yet, mostly because I don't think you're going to like hearing it," Dirk continues uninterrupted as the tacky feeling walks up your leg, point to point to point. "Not sure what your outlook on the supernatural and profane and divine are, but this is squarely in that arena, lions and all."

A soft, soft brush along your inner thigh makes your head roll from side to side. So very soft, your own hand has none of that and it's all you've had for company for months. This is so far from that, you fight to keep your legs from quaking, lest you-- you break it or something, it's so delicate.

"While you're doing all this, carving the vessel, making a sphere, you need to be underwater. Not just the heart but you. Should be pretty clear why, the mechanics are all pretty standard. A perfect vessel, no contamination, so water will protect you and it, keep you devoid of interference. It's a purity thing, but sort of in the earth mysticism way, not the Judeo-Christian way, if you understand my meaning."

One of your hands is free. Immediately you reach out, and feel more softness, such a  foreign feeling out this far from the conquered world. You want it so desperately, like something once loved then forgotten by time and distance. Digging your fingers in throws kindling on the fire that's already burning you up, and you rock and gasp wordlessly.

The hem of your shirt rucks up, and a hot wet touch rests on the very tip of your cock. Pressure and sensation, you bite your lip and tense your fingers. It's smoke sweet. Everything is smoke sweet and clinging in your throat and tongue and casting over your skin.

"So, it's going to take a while to do, especially if you are so determined not to drink any of the water here. Good luck with that when you're sitting at the bottom and working on this. If a single chip comes off the heart while you're above water, you're gonna have to get another one and start over."

The touch turns to a slow suckling sensation that makes your spine light up with embers, it's so good. You stroke your thumb through the softness, so relieved. It has been such a long time since you've had this, had any attention at all. No magic in all the kingdoms could quench that need in you, just to be touched like this. You try to be kind, avoid yanking or hurting at all while you entreat and beg for more.

It works, and after a few more slow laps, you're swallowed fully. Your head lolls and you groan, and he's right, there's an echo, it washes right back over you, joining all the water sounds and night music and everything that makes up the universe out here in the dead of night.

You must be dreaming. Nothing feels this good, and you don't think you've ever been so vulnerable before.

"After that, there's a whole other stage of artifacting to do, but if you fuck it up before you get there, it'll be a colossal waste of time. So cool your heels and stop dreaming of Beryllia and just do this, got it? Then we can talk about what comes next."

With a deep inhale of smoke that fills you like a lantern, you spill out, as sudden as a cup overturning. Shivering and trying to catch your breath amid the thick air, you come with ease, the outpour of sensation coaxed from you like your control's just gone.

When you manage to blurrily look around, it's all just shapes and colors in the darkness. The fire is definitely out.

Your hand is lowered to rest on your thigh, grasp lax and weak. Dirk rubs his jaw. Nothing fits together in your brain, and you decide you need to rest.

You have all of tomorrow ahead, waiting for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **chapter content:** esoteric sensual bullshit, isolation, drugging, dubious consent, dangerous magic, and Dirk is manipulative for the first time in his life
> 
>  
> 
> I got a playlist and I'm gonna make a pinterest board and go full in on this, I am a cliche of myself, also if this ends up being more than three parts, fuck everything.


	19. 19 October - here in the land of frozen hands (Oasis AU 2/3)

**_[Now Playing:[Track 02 - "Desert Song" Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes](https://open.spotify.com/track/1R7qWTGHHt0xGga3nIogZD?si=3H4Z-_BiTPWJ2flxSBE5xg)]_ **

 

* * *

 

 

There is no sleeping in at the sunken oasis. It would be lovely if the lowered elevation of the gorge helped, but the sun still rises and strikes the water with the rays of God themself, and the refracted light floods and slicing right into your eyeballs, through your lids.

You wake up feeling like someone dragged you facedown all the way to Damascus. Tongue tastes like cheap tobacco, dust included, head throbbing like someone's banging on it with a drum mallet. Your legs ache, that's a weird one, like you nearly pulled a muscle.

The sun could fuck off. That'd be brilliant.

You hear the sound of water, sloshing and wet impact.

You remember where you are and heave yourself upright and out of your tent. Luckily you seem to have made yourself decent enough with a long nightshirt that will nearly reach your knees when you tug it down enough.

Pushing through the flap of your tent, you shield your eyes and peer around the little grotto where you have been forced to camp in. Across the way, the vagabond's little damp homestead is empty.

He's not hard to spot; the water breaks, and Dirk lifts his body out of the depths and onto a rock. Wet, his hair is darker, and hangs much lower than your recall, and without his gold paint, he seems extra naked. Which he is. Definitely naked.

You're going to look away lickety-split, but he spots you first and gives you a brisk little wave before dragging his hair out of his face and back over his skull. "Hello."

Now you have to play it cool as a cucumber. "Good morning. Having a-- an early swim?"

"Washing up. Just finished." He stands, and now you definitely look away, finding something else to stare at. Oh, look, there's your pack. You should bring that into your tent and clean up a bit.

Waiting for the sound of movement to stop takes time. Only then do you glance up and see Dirk back home. His loose airy pants are back on, and he's messing with a bowl or something.

Like he just _knows_ you're looking, he glances up at you. "You have a lot to do, remember? Probably need to start with your horse."

Remember? What are you supposed to remember? Covering, you nod and go about dressing, gathering what you need, and head up to the surface by your rope. While you're up there, you'll grab more wood for yourself and Dirk.

But _remember._ Clearly you have forgotten something. If it was from the night a'fore, then your headache makes a lot more sense. The alcohol levels in your packed bottles might be running low. That sounds like the sort of mistake you'd make.

As you spend some time with your horse, you try to shake loose anything to go off. There was the bath, and… music. The air was full of sound, and it was a lovely night, even if your company seemed needlessly cryptic and mercurial.

He wanted something to tell you how to make the Talisman. Did he eventually spill the beans? Shit.

In a hurry, you return to the oasis, and wade back. The wood gets tossed carelessly into your camp before you go find Dirk.

Now you can see what he's doing. The gold lines and stripes are back. Or, they are different today. He seems to pick different designs each time, all solid lines of varying thickness and some tidy dots stippled in perfect alignment.

By now, he's nearly done. He swishes a paintbrush in a little bowl of golden stuff and drags a ring around the knots of his ankles, then a band around. When he's done, he extends his foot and looks over his handiwork.

"Hey there," you say as you approach. The flooring dips suddenly and you drop to your hips with a yelp. God damn this blasted uneven basin!

Dirk, perched on his rock, gives you a bland look. "Hello again. Got it, wanderer?"

You find your footing again and make an effort not to glare at him. "Perfectly within my capabilities, thanks for the concern. I was hoping to lean on your generosity and ask for a refresher."

"A refresher." Dirk swishes a leg through the water idly. He reminds you very much of a cat, proud of its high perch.

"As I recall," or not, as it were, "we were up fairly late into the night. You know how it is, when you're told something right before bed and you don't write it down, assuming you'll have total recall come morning." You grin sheepishly. "Well, I'm a little foggy on the details of what I'm to do next."

"That'll cost you," Dirk says.

"Cost me?! Again?" You sputter at him as he keeps staring placidly back. Damn him, that blank facade he's so found of is just annoying as all get out. "I already paid!"

"Did you?" Dirk asks.

Suddenly, you falter. "Uh. I assumed?"

"You don't remember."

You cannot go ten minutes in this bloke's company without being completely unfooted, christ. "I… well…" Pursing your lips, you think about it. "Let me… I have a few more things to offer, depending on your fancy."

"Think I _fancy_ something else."

All the bluster and indignation in you is useless against Dirk and the way he's holding all the cards here. "You are a vexing thing, has anyone ever told you so?"

"No. I want a kiss."

"A _what?_ " you croak, stunned.

"Oh, are you unfamiliar with the concept?"

"I know what a-- you want to kiss me?" Nevermind glimpsing the man in his altogether, now you're flushed all over and uncertain. But… you could probably do that. He isn't an eyesore by any means, more of a feast than anything. There is something to him that makes him seem too detached from reality to touch, but… well, you could still manage. Especially with that little stripe of gold he's adorned his lower lip with.

However, Dirk shakes his head. "No. I want you to kiss me. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Not on the mouth, questant. Anywhere but, actually." He nods, as if warming to his own idea.

This is confusing to say the least. "What's the point of this?"

He shrugs. "I'm curious what you'll do."

So he's bored, and messing with you. That's annoying. You narrow your eyes at him. He seems unfazed.

Fine. Whatever. He wants a kiss, he can have a kiss. It'd serve him right to get one popped right on that fiendish mouth of his. You'd love to see his face then. The only trouble is he's such a prickly fellow, you can imagine him punishing you and withholding the information you need just to teach you a lesson.

You circle around him, considering. He points his toes in the water, stretching, unconcerned. There's that matter to, that he's happy as a clam up there, and you couldn't reach his mouth if you needed to.

His clavicle is bisected by a pretty little strike of gold. That'd be nearly as good, to drag him in and bite his shoulder a bit. Or is that the test? Is this a test?

Dirk blows out a breath, like he's bored. If it's a test, you're failing.

Seized by the need to do something, you brace up on your toes until you can stand, then take one of the hands he has loosely curled against the rock. He doesn't resist you, lets you hold him, but doesn't help at all either.

There are bands of gold around his wrists and a few of his fingers. Whatever he's using, it seems resistant to the water.

The back of his hand is tempting. Nothing more chaste than that, let him stew with that. A how-do-you-do and naught else.

But christ, that feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face. You can feel how solid and real he is under your grip, disproving all your little notions of his spectral nature. He's warm and living, and you take the time to unbend his fingers, laying them flat over your hand.

It's not chaste, per se. Your lips are parted just so as you press them under the heel of his hand, over one of the gold bands around his wrist. The skin is soft, like it'd break under the slightest pressure, and you feel his fingers twitch against your face.

You tighten your grip on his hand and arm, drag your lips around. There's his pulse; you're relieved he has one, steady and quick under your mouth. It's a bigger tell than anything else he's offered you.

He rubs his fingertips against your hair. You make sure to move too much, and feel the paint that catches on your hands, your mouth, your cheek.

Leaning back, you lick your lips. Earthy, and-- cool. So cool it bites your tongue, a jolt of sensation startling you. There's only a drop of it, but you know it's oasis water from the intensity.

Letting go, you scrape your tongue against your teeth, trying to loose that whip-crack chill.

Dirk lifts his arm and looks it over. All his delicate work is fucking ruined. It gives you no small amount of pride to see his frown. "Hm. So, the Talisman."

You smile up at him and hope there's gold smeared on your lips. "The Talisman."

"Pay attention this time," Dirk says, and explains the process to you again.

 

* * *

 

You stomp out into the heart of the oasis with a glorified peach pit in one hand and your whittling knife in the other, looking for a spot where you can sit and be totally submerged under the water to make this blasted fucking spellcatcher.

Dirk was right; you are not a fan of this part of the process. It seems overly complicated, and you just don't want to sit from toe to hair in malicious waters.

And they must be. They _have_ to be. You did not make it this far in life without learning to trust your instincts, and your instincts say not to trust this damned spring. Even if it doesn't kill you, there's a chance it'll make you as fucking barmy as Dirk, and you can't have _that_ now.

Beryllia. You have to make it to the Beryllium Gardens. In your Gran's books, they claimed the Beryllian artisans carved every crown and headdress of the court from single chunks of emerald, and they shone so bright in the sun they could illuminate the whole palace.

So you simmer your hothead down and wade around, looking for the right place to work. You want a place in the sun, since the clarity of the water means you'll be able to see pretty well with eyes open. Also, somewhere you can be above the surface when straight-legged and below it on bent knees. Having a place to brace your hands would be nice too.

The best bet would be to ask Dirk, but who knows what the hell he's want in return for _that._ Next best bet, you find the grotto with the weird wellspring tree. Here, the water is plenty deep, and the sun is brilliant, as if coming through the gaps in the ceiling somehow focused it.

You find a spot where there's a fallen rock you can sit on, and you're completely under. Mind, sitting there makes your breathing come hurried and catching; you don't like this, not one bit.

Closing your fist around the heartseed, you know you have to do this.

Standing, you breathe for a while, making sure to exhale hard each time, sending flecks of oasis water away from your mouth.

When you're ready (which takes a humiliatingly long time), you sit down, and settle on the little seat you have.

First round, you accomplish nothing. You're nervous, unsure how long you can keep your lips sealed shut and how long your lungs will hold out. Opening your eyes takes precious seconds of cajoling yourself.

You resurface, and gasp desperately. It's hard. It's fucking hard. God.

In the Beryllium Gardens proper, there's an enormous tree. From its truck extends branches heavy with fruit. Apples and cherries and figs and apricots, all on their own branch that the clever Beryllians grafted into their great tree. Diplomats come to the city for the first time would bring a cutting from their own produce trees to be added. Deep in the city, that tree has varieties of fruits the world has lost track of. It has entire species that have gone extinct.

You take a breath, and drop, knife at the ready.

You're not sure what size to make this thing. It didn't seem to matter from the way Dirk explained things; the shape was the point. So, you let your knife pull along the misshapen woody lump until it naturally catches on a knock. Decisively, you flick it off, letting it drift away and sink to the strange stone floor.

Holding the seed up, you look over the cut. The angle is a tad off. You cut it again, and look again.

There. That could be the start of a sphere, you think.

You need to take another breath. Kicking off, you surface, blow out the last of your air over your lips, and suck in another lungful.

This is going to take time, you realize with a sinking feeling. This might take quite a bit of time.

 

* * *

 

Eventually the constant dunking in and out of the water starts to really drive you a little batshit out the belfry. You're _soaked_ , just completely to the bone, like someone's left you to brine in a pot all weekend. Your lips sort of hurt from all the times you blew out through them to clear away the wretched oasis from where it might infiltrate. The combination of wielding a small knife and being submerged leaves your dominant hand cramped, and you're tired.

You've managed to round and smooth one side of the seed thing. Deciding that's enough for now, you pocket it and haul yourself out. Water streams off you in thick sheets, still leaving you feeling heavy and clumsy as you retreat.

One day you are going to have to look back and ask yourself if it was worthwhile. Thankfully, that is not today.

You intend to go complain to the only quasi-sympathetic ear you have out here. But again, you have trouble locating him. Given the sort of enclosed nature of the environment, it's impressive how he makes himself so scarce.

With nothing better to do and sort of hoping you'll find him, you keep walking up the gorge, eyes scanning around.

This time, you find Dirk laying in the water.

For two seconds, your breath catches and you freeze in a wash of horror. He's laid on his back, submerge halfway, and you think he could be hurt or-- or worse.

The fear passes when you notice a few things. Dirk's hands are folded over his chest, and his positioning is too perfect to be the result of a fall. And his chest moves deep and steady, maybe the surface around him ripple so slightly in the sunlight.

Ergo not dead. He's… sleeping in the water. You weren't expecting that.

Moving as carefully as you can, you approach, trying not to make a disturbance. Only a complete cretin interrupts a lovely slumber like this. No, you walk until you can lean over him, and stare down at his shut eyes, his lips just barely open around his breathing. Around his head, his hair is a halo of cold water and lightning-white, floating and ebbing this way and that as you cause subtle shifts around him.

Damn him, but he's a vision. Looking at him reminds you of your Gran's collection of artifacts, the shining dangerous things she kept in locked boxes and safe out of your grasp.

Eventually, after you have already stared at him for a tremendously rude length of time, his eyes flutter, and one opens. "You're blocking the sun."

"Doing you a favor," you shoot back, quickdraw. "Pallor like yours, how you're not burnt to a crisp I've no idea."

He pushes up on his elbows, out of the water. "Sorry, were you saying something?" When you just sigh, he looks you up and down. "Didn't expect you back before nightfall. Did you forget again? Because honestly, I don't think I want anything else from you today, so you may be out of luck."

"No, I remember perfectly well. And…" You trail off with a grimace. "It's fiddly annoying work! I needed a break from it."

"How far did you get?" He holds up his hand; it's the one you kissed earlier, and he's not bothered to repaint all his funny lines, leaving them all smeared and mussed.

You take the seed out of your pocket and drop it into his palm. He takes it, holds it between his fingers, turns it a few times. Frowning, he presses his palms together with it between. "Huh. You already fucked it up."

What? "What?" you lean down towards him, trying to follow his sight as he squints at it. "What'd'you mean, already? I just started!"

"It's going to come out oblong if you keep at it. The angle here is too steep, and you've taken too much off." Reaching for his Talisman, he pulls it off his neck, and hands both it and your heartseed up to you.

The Talisman is bright and gleaming in his grip. You hesitate.

"It's fine," he reminds you. "You can't make use of it as long as I live and breathe. Just compare, since you've forgotten what a sphere is like."

Wiseass. You take both and look between them.

He's right, of course. You took yours in too sharply, and making it level off would require cutting off most of what you've already shaped. "Well, shit. Now what?"

"Get another one. Start over. Make a sphere." You hand him back his necklace, and watch him drape it over his shoulders again.

Glaring down at the pit, you toss it in your hand for a moment, then fling it out like a skipping stone. As it's rough, porous, and not meant for such things, it hops once and immediately vanishes into a little splash of water.

Dirk shakes some excess droplets from his hair. "Getting late. Navigating around the wellspring is difficult after dark."

"Yeah, yeah, alright." Sighing, you step away from him. "Will I…. Where'll you be, later?"

He gives you a blank stare. "Where?"

"Nevermind," you mutter, and storm back off, the other way through the gorge. You don't know why you'd bother. He wouldn't give you a direct answer anyway.

 

* * *

 

You return to camp as night falls with a new heartseed in hand and scrapes on your knees. The pillar was unforgiving and you fell twice trying to grab a new one.

Your clothes slap loudly against the ground as you hurl them down. What a mess. A day absolutely wasted.

"For someone who didn't get a lot done, you look exhausted."

Turning towards Dirk's voice would mean giving him an eyeful, and you have some modesty left still. Holding up a quelling hand, you duck into your tent and snatch up your nightshirt. Dragging it on over your damp skin, you sigh and go outside to sink down in front of your fire pit.

No fire yet. Dirk's is already going pretty strong.

You glance up at him. He seems very tall, standing there with arms crossed and feet shoulder-width apart.  Overhead, the stars are coming out in droves, like fireflies knocked from their hiding spot, winking on one by one.

"Just…" Waving a hand through the air, you shake your head. Exhausted certainly is the term. "I'll start again tomorrow."

"You will." He tilts his head, contemplative. Whatever is on his mind, he doesn't share.

You are thinking about the fire.

"I'll trade you," you say suddenly. Dirk looks mildly surprised to your delight, and you tell him, "I have decent food. I'll share it if you will bring over some fire. Do you find this agreeable?"

He chuckles softly. "You have had quite a hard time of it. And it's not going to get easier. Alright." He bows slightly, and leaves. You go into your tent to sort through what you brought, finding dried fruits, various cured and dried meats, and, ooh, the tahini-stuffed dates, those are stellar. So much so you don't know if you want to share there, but…

You step out, ready for some company and supper.

Dirk lifts an entire branch in one arm, having apparently selected it from his fire. Rather than keeping a careful hold of it, maybe pointing it away from his body, he carries it aloft. The flame burns over his head, like the bridgewatcher coming with a lantern. But far more dangerous, with embers falling from the fire, falling past him and sizzling down against the water as he returns to your side.

Your jaw drops as he comes to you, ethereal and foreign in a way that has nothing to do with homelands.

"You're mad," you tell him.

He brings his torch down on your firepit with such force it snaps the branch in two. As the flaming part seeps into the bowl, he lays the unburned half over it. "That's often a matter of perspective, I find."

"And yours is bonkers."

"If you say so. I'd like to try one of those dates."

You pick your way through food diligently, half a mind on rationing, and half on watching Dirk. He chews things slowly, thoughtfully as he eats. You wonder how long it's been since he's had anything not directly scavenged from the gorge.

You also wonder why he stays here.

As he eats, he sits almost away from you, his back to the fire, his legs stretched out, down the easy slope of dry land. His heels rest in the water, but he's so still that the ripples and disturbances from him begin to fade like a forgotten song. Before long, it becomes like a mirror, reflecting the sky above, moonless and strewn heavily with stars. Inverted in the water, they all seem different and unfamiliar.

When you've eaten enough to be satisfied, you join him, sitting nearby. Keeping your feet clear, you leave the mirror alone, watching it with him.

One of his arms is draped over his knees. It's the smeared one. The gold paint gleams even in the dim light.

"Hard to pick out any interesting figures with the astrology all flipped 'round," you murmur.

Dirk points to an unknown collection of stars. "There's the Steed of Scythia over there. The bright twin stars are its hooves. Those four aligned, it's one of the Swords of Machlyes."

As he goes through listing the various constellations he's probably made up, you think about whether or not you're going to sleep with him before all this is over. There was the kiss, you have to take that into account, and usually you have to earn someone's ire before they mess with you as much as this man has been messing with you. The tension is there, humming between you.

Frankly, you would be doing him a favor; he's very remote, and you don't imagine he has a surplus of open-minded individuals. And it's sort of your favorite type of hook-up; it'll be fun and fueled by the crackling energy you share, and then you'll be gone.

He drinks water straight from his palms. Thirst seizes you, and your hands twitch to close around your flask. But your supply is not infinite, and right now you are all too aware of the precarious position you're in, at least until the Talisman is completed.

You sip enough to wet your mouth and lips, and watch as plenty more drips down Dirk's face as he carelessly swallows mouthfuls, ignoring your caution.

 

* * *

 

Come morning, you're fucked, because the horse is gone.

You bring up some water from the oasis to refill the bucket you left by the horse, only to find the effort of hauling it upward and out of the gorge pointless because the horse is _gone_. The rope no longer dangles from the tree, and lays dragged away from the oasis, left and abandoned.

Dropping the water and letting it slosh out and soak the stone, dripping back down, you start cursing and stomping around the little shade you built for her. Shit! Shit shit shit!

The journey out this far was long, and that was with a horse to carry you. Now…

Staring out at the white sand, back the way you came from. Back where you… you now….

The brightness around you is blinding, like the very light is dangerous, trying to dig its claws into your eyes. Now. Now, now, now you retreat and drop hard back into the water, splashing high enough you jerk your head back as it hits your face. "Fuck."

Finding Dirk takes no time. He's got his little basket on his hip and is ghosting around the edges of the gorge. There's a growing collection of food accumulating as he plucks leaves off the succulents seated in the cracks in the wall.

You are thunderous as you storm over to him, grabbing his shoulder and shoving him back against one of the sparse pillars that dot the oasis. Some of his food scatters, but he seems calm as he looks you in the eyes.

"I'm guessing something's wrong." His voice is bland.

"Oh, like you don't know," you snap at him and do your best to crowd him back further. There is no space between you, and you want to lift him and shove him harder back against the pillar.

He tips his head at you, eyes considering. "Hm. Well, you went up to tend to your horse, then came down like a fury possessed you." As he speaks, his fingers trace over your biceps, as if that's somehow acceptable behavior right now, what the hell. "I would put my non-existent money on your horse being dead or gone." His lips curve down, and his eyes soften with concern. "Not dead, right?"

"You really mean to say you had nothing to do with it? Not you, not your damned watering hole?"

"'Damned' is a word of specificity. No. I told you I can't climb. Besides, you didn't tend to the horse last night. Maybe she got tired of you procrastinating."

You purse your lips at him. He blatantly stares at your mouth, then rests his palm on your chest.

Reluctantly, you ease off. Then, looking around, you see the bits and morsels that fell, sitting against the stone floor. Reaching into the water, you pull what you can spot out of the water and rest it back in Dirk's basket. He watches you, silent but with judgement radiating out of him.

You clear your throat and step back from him. "I should… the Talisman." Making the Talisman just became remarkably more important. A tightness like frost has taken your breathing, a stitch of something jittering and deeply worried.

The Talisman isn't just the key to your next adventure any more. You need it. God, you need it now.

Nodding, Dirk resettles his cloak around himself, making too much of a show of it after your rather aggressive advance on him. When he's satisfied at the lay of the drape, he flicks his hair out of his eyes and saunters off, hems trailing through the water behind him.

A massive sigh bursts out of your lungs like a popped balloon. You need to work now, and leave to go find a puddle to sit in.

Botching another fucking heartseed is not an option for you. You settle in, cross legged, at the bottom of a pool, and smooth your knife over the craggy surface. Spheres. Making a sphere is hard.

To help, you keep turning and turning the seed and make little hatch marks. No cuts yet, just the outline pressed into the wood, softening as it soaks up the water.

You wait too long and kick to the surface, sputtering.

Then: again.

It's a long time before you even risk nicking off a bit of the seed, setting the knife and pushing, trying so hard to follow your guidelines. It's nerve-wracking, and with every slice, you stop and turn the entire thing over in your hands.

You are at once in a rush and desperately slow. It's plodding work, enough that you ache to just be _done_. There's no time, and you're stuck out here--

Taking a break, you sit up, and drink from your flask. Well. At least you don't have to share with the horse anymore. That will help.

When you return to the carving, the sun has moved, and you have to find a new spot. It takes precious time, and you resolve to start paying more attention and learning the oasis better. The process will go faster if you know where to sit at what time of day.

Because you're not going to finish today, by any means. You realize when you are bathed in the liquid crystal that seems to make up the oasis, cool and clear. Stopping, you sigh, letting a great bubble of air out of you. This is not a one day project. And you know the rough-hewn sphere you are making isn't the last leg of this journey; soon, fuck, you'll have to trade something to that star-distant stranger. Whatever he wants.

You frown as you whittle off an awkward bit of stuff, knowing your leverage in this situation was mainly the fact you could leave at any time. No longer the case.

You work until it's literally too dark. When you pull your body from the water for the last time, you nearly drop the knife and carved seed, your arms hurt so fucking much. Clumsily, you pack everything into your pockets and begin to stagger back to camp.

Damn all the damp of this place. Dragging your legs through the water sucks. Tomorrow, you'll bring a lunch with you.

When you get to the gentle slope where your tent is sat, you sit heavily, and the momentum carries you down onto your side, arms laying where you've fallen. How can your entire body ache from just carving shit all day?

Gentle footsteps approach, and you nearly ask him to just go away. His nightly tortures are too much. You don't have the energy to spar with him and you don't want to see him in whatever state of undress he's decided on this time. Damned freshwater urchin.

You feel him sit next you to and peek one eye at him. He has his bowl in his lap and picks through it with long fingers painted in gold.

He takes a curved green glistening triangle. His succulent treat, peeled to reveal the meat underneath. Without a word, he presses it to your lips.

It's impossible to know if he's being kind or cruel. You open up and take it with your teeth. It tastes vividly _green_ on your tongue, wet with something like a vegetal sap. You break it with your teeth, and find it desperately refreshing.

He feeds you another one, fingertips just grazing your lips. "How's it going?"

You hum and force your arm to move, to take the seed out of your pocket. To your dismay, Dirk pauses to take a look at it, turning the seed over between his fingers with great care.

Then, thank fuck, he gives it back to you and goes back to plying you with weird oasis food. "At least you haven't fucked it up again."

You grunt at him, and shut your eyes. You can feel it each time he presses a new bite to your mouth; you don't have to watch him.

The next day is much the same, but you take more care. In a small pack you bring a bit of food to keep you going, and you start in the same spot for the morning rays. When they move out of place, you force yourself to eat something and drink.

Even so, you wind up having to quit earlier in the evening. The seed is just about a circle, but nowhere near the alleged perfection you need for the talisman.

But your arms hurt. Fucking up when you've gotten so far because your hands don't want to grip the knife anymore would be bad. So, you throw in the towel and go back. Seems all you do is ebb and flow from this spot, from the little open grotto with your camp and Dirk's home.

Tonight is music again. The record player fills the basin, and you follow it like a beacon. This time, it's a new melody, not quite as calming as the last Dirk played; like some metal percussive instrument, like maybe bells, being tapped and dragged against hide drums. Under it, flushing the background like steady pumping blood, is a looping guitar.

It feels more alive. It's not music for sleep.

Your tempestuous local siren is not idly sitting by his fire this time. He's moving. He's in ankle-deep water and gliding this way and that, feet pivoting and sweeping in wide arcs, carrying him along. His heels seem to drag along with the music, as if he had the bells on his feet.

You stand there and stare at him for a while, feeling tired, feeling covetous.

When the beat finally spins Dirk around, he comes back, skating through water until he's so close you almost step back to give him room. Maybe he's possessed? Maybe he'll careen right into you with no control of himself. Despite the pain in your arms, you would catch him.

It's unnecessary. He keeps moving, but one of his hands pulls over yours, and his fingers close on your aching wrist. "C'mon."

You resist. His fingers leave gold on your skin. "Why?"

The ruthless moon-drenched warden of this godforsaken wound in the earth says, "You need me. So come on." You have no idea of his parentage, but you know he's a bastard.

Dancing has always been an activity reserved for when you've safely had a few drinks beforehand. Everything becomes a little easier. As such, you have no idea if you are a good dancer. That hardly matters, in your narrow experience.

Hell, you don't know if Dirk is a good dancer. Certainly better than you, with his feet moving unerringly in time with the music, the sound of him parting the water an instrument in of itself. For a while, you follow him, just staggered steps. You've… never really been the kind of fellow who can ink a treble clef, and the nuances are sort of lost to you.

Dirk leads you on, drawing your hands to his sides and putting his hands on your bicep and shoulder. When he steps back with an emphatic hip swing, you step forward to match, and this is easier. Simpler than his whirling dance before, but suited to a lummox like you.

His lips are a full seal of gold tonight. You stare at that, focus there, and that helps immensely. It's harder for you to mess up the steps this way as you avoid really thinking about them.

It's movement like a stream flowing both ways. The guitar feels like it's crawling up your spine as you realize Dirk's having you follow its tune. He's the percussion, the heartbeat of the music. You hear the loop, and turn Dirk around in a slow circle as his feet keep hitting the rhythm.

That's it. You're leading now. Your part is stripped down, just guiding around the dervish devil who's pulled you into his whirlpool. It works, and you let out a fucking gasp at feeling how it all comes together like a puzzle box opening.

Something in you settles like a dog turning circles and laying down. The squiggly worried feeling lowers it hackles and you occupy your mind with touching Dirk in new places. The paint's stubborn, but you drag your hand from his shoulder down to grip his hand as you let his momentum carry him away from you, catching him to pull him back in. One arm, still perfect with sacred geometries holding him in his skin. The other, a glittering smear where you pressed your thumb in.

Your palm and fingers are thick with the stuff. It leaves a vibrant handprint when you hold his neck. Squeezing a little, you press the paint back into him in the shape of you.

He's close now, by necessity. He's watching you carefully, probably due to the fact you're gripping his neck. Makes sense. But his hips keep moving, rocking like a boat on turbulent water, as he eliminates distance between you. He's one of those cats, moving to find the right position to pounce from.

Dirk does not spring on you. Instead, he falls back. You immediately grab hold of him, try to catch him, you want so badly to catch him, it feels like equilibrium if you're not the person falling for once.

But you are falling, down with him. He falls to land on the escarpment up to your camp, half in water and half draped over the slope. Predictably, you land over him, _on him_ really, but push up on your hands to get off him.

His hands remain curled around your arms, and he looks up at you with naked amusement. His lips shine in the moonlight as they curve up into a grin, showing his teeth and the dark pink of his tongue between them. He's looking up at you like you are as sure a thing as a bullet.

Fingers touch your neck, lingering on your adam's apple. It bobs as you swallow thickly, and he follows it. Like he might bite it.

There's heat in you. It's the remnants of dancing, sure, but the flood of fear is becoming old hand for you. Here in the oasis, it's an almost constant companion, and you really wish that meant you would be rational. Fear sharpens your senses, but not for flight. Instead, you're just hot everywhere, tense as you wait for Dirk's next move. It's syrup sweetness that's so intense it hurts your tongue.

You don't want to consider the things it says about you, that the fear tension is getting you hard. That's just not fair.

Dirk tilts his head, like he wants to be kissed.

You'd sooner shove your dick in Pandora's box. Terrorousal lances through you, and if you keep looking at Dirk's golden smile you're going to do something really fucking stupid.

Instead, you make a noble retreat, down his neck. Dragging your mouth over his chest, tongue skating through lingering paint as you amscray down, where you won't be able to see his face. It's much safer this way, grabbing at his hips and loosening the sash around his waist, pulling his clothes loose.

He reaches down and puts his fingers in your hair and sighs like a song, _"Jake."_

You squeeze your eyes shut and suck in a breath. Shit. Shit.

His thumbs stroke your brow and face soft and sweet as you hitch one of his legs up around your shoulder and you pull his cock out of the folds of his trousers. When you close your fingers around him, he jolts like a carriage rolled over a stone, letting out a rich moan.

Shit. You feel in between the jaws of a dragon, not the legs of a man, and you are desperate as you put his dick in your mouth and start to wet him with your tongue.

Maybe looking at his golden eyes and golden lips would be safer than this. You work him without grace or finesse, just stroking his dick once you've wet it enough and sucking hard with hollowed cheeks. There's no tenderness to it, because you feel much like something trying to protect its soft underbelly right now. Despite that, Dirk's nails drag against your scalp, making desert lightning zing through your nerves. His thumbs press and massage your temples, and his heel digs into your back as he rocks up into your mouth. You thought he might taste like water or something, but he tastes human and bedrock real.

And he moans, christ he moans like it's the best thing he's ever had, and just like the music it bounces off the walls and back at you. Your breath comes in winded gasps, so turned on it hurts, and you reposition with your legs apart. One hand you keep on the blade-sharp cut of his hips, the other you shove into your pants, into the water because you're submerged half up your back laying out like this, and your hand feels like an iron brand around your water-cooled dick.

His thumbs flirt with the curve of your ear, and you have to let his dick fall from your mouth because you're too busy stripping yours with a hard, mean grip. The water moves in waves as you rock against him, into your own hands, already so close to the edge you can't handle it, it hurts.

Dirk's hand is cupping the back of your neck, holding your cheek to his belly as you come to pieces.

The fog in your head afterward helps. You lose track of the fear and just start dragging your tongue over his dick again, sucking the tip. He sighs and moans out more noise, and you can just let it wash over you and stop worrying about it. The fingers stroking your hair feel so fucking good after such a long day.

He comes almost slowly, filling your mouth with spasms. You swallow once, then let the rest just fall out from your lips. With a wet hand, you wipe your mouth and wish you had your flask in hand already.

There's no energy left. You lay down on Dirk's belly, shutting your eyes, your body a contented hum. His hands close around you, arms crossing, and he's so terrible and comfortable. It's a relief to sink into a good dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **chapter content:** more esoteric sensual bullshit, more manipulation, outright fearboners, power imbalance, and dancing.
> 
> The horse is fine and lives a long and happy life with someone who loves her and actually takes the time to name her instead of the stupid song reference.
> 
> Also I am weirdly and inordinately proud of the Pandora's box pun, sue me.


End file.
